One of the best ways to speed up your PC without having to spend money for extra RAM is to stop unnecessary programs and services from running whenever you start your PC. When too many programs and services run automatically every time you start up your system, startup itself takes a long time, and too many programs and services running simultaneously can bog down your CPU and hog your memory. Some program such as Antivirus should run automatically but there are other program which serve no purpose by being run at startup.

There are different ways to make your PC perform faster and decrease the shutdown time of your PC. You can also speed startup time for your PC. Let's detail out the process for this

Cleaning out the Startup Folder

Starup folder is the place where all startup program shortcut is placed, you can clean startup folder by going to C:\Documents and Settings\<User Name>\Start Menu\Programs\Startup, where <User Name> is your Windows logon name. Delete the shortcuts of any programs you don't want to run on startup. As with any shortcuts, when you delete them, you're only deleting the shortcut, not the program itself. (You can also clear out the startup items by going to Start > Programs > Startup and right-clicking on items you want to remove.) Next, clean out your Scheduled Tasks folder. Go to C:\WINDOWS\Tasks, and delete the shortcuts of any programs that you don't want to run automatically on a schedule.

Note:You can bypass all the programs in your Startup folder on an as-needed basis. To stop XP from loading any programs in the Startup folder, hold down the Shift key during boot-up. No programs in the Startup folder will run, but the items will still remain there, so that they will start up as they would normally the next time you boot.

Using MSCONFIG to disable hidden programs that run on startup

Taking the previous steps will stop the obvious programs from running at startup, but it won't kill them all. The best tool for disabling hidden programs that run on startup is the System Configuration Utility. To run it, type msconfig at a command prompt and press Enter.

To stop a program from running at startup, go to the Startup tab in this utility and uncheck the box next to the program.