HELP - Necessary/Unnecessary Files Running

[Winjer23]

I'm sure this is of interest to many people here - is there any sort of internet repository to help identify many of the most common files that might be running in the system tray (or whatever you call it when you press CTRL-ALT-DEL) in Win ME/98???

<systray> should be kept on (manages what's being used?)
<Explorer> should be kept on (if terminated - Windows shuts down)
THESE ARE THE ONLY REQUIRED FILES, I BELIEVE

HOWEVER,
<Rnaap> I'm not do sure about
<mdm> seems to show up after I open and close various programs
etc...

There are a host of others, and they work there way into my startup when I install things - I have to msconfig them out using a selective startup, but I'm never quite sure what they all do (esp. the ones residing in windows directories) and which ones are needed. All of them annoy me.

Additionally, my PC wants to load a bunch of things (e.g. LoadPowerprofile 2-3 times, taskmanager, etc.) that do not appear to leave a mark, but are these necessary? I can turn them off for my own comfort, but how do I really know what I've turned off (maybe I want them...)?

Any resources on the web, or general guidelines? I don't like Windows accumulating all of this crap and reducing my nice machine to slow error-prone junk-heap.

Thanks,
Andrew

 

[ceraph]

I have a couple questions to ask you:

* Why are you running Win98/ME? =)
* If you were running Windows 2000, I'd say that on a 1.2GHz Athlon with 256MB of ram, the least of your worries should be rundll, rnaap, and the device management processes.

Most of the applications that you're referring to take up less than 2MB of memory. If you're running Win98, there a LOT more daemons and processes in memory that the Ctrl+Alt+Del task manager doesn't show you. On a standard Windows 2000 Professional install with 256MB physical memory, with a 400MB swap file, you'll usually have 50-80MB of memory used on boot, with 600 some free (including paging). Windows 98/ME manages memory with a lot less conservatism than 2000, and the combinations of leaks and open-ended allocation will eat away at your memory/paging within a few hours.

It is the nature of any OS to load applications that manage its own internal processes. You would think it a wonder that any OS works at all if you actually got down into the registers level =).

If you're really worried about performance, you should be more concerned with:

* Getting the latest and best performing drivers.
* Getting better disk throughput with smart cache management.
* Disabling any memory intensive and CPU intensive programs like: firewalls, virus scanners, Microsoft Office daemons, and other resident programs that don't need to be (Real crap, Adaptec crap, and so on).
* Upgrading to ATA/100 if you haven't already.
* Tweaking BIOS settings to get the most out of your memory (ie changing your latency timing from 3-2-3 or 3-3-3 to 2-2-2 if your memory supports it).

Look into some of the overclocker's forums and the performance junkies areas to find out more about tweaking a system for performance. Windows 98/ME is crippled enough as it is, don't make it any worse by denying it its own management processes =).