Is the Notification area, on the left-hand side of your task bar, cluttered with icons?

Does it take ages to start up your PC?

This might be caused by software programs that you installed on your system.

If you do not use some of these icons, disable them and save precious physical memory. Decide which program icons you use regularly and whether you want to keep these in the Notification area.

It is highly recommended that you keep your anti-virus software, and any specific printer/scanner icons.

Click on Start - Run, type msconfig in the Open field and click OK to open the System Configuration Utility window below.

Click on the Startup tab to get a list of all your systems startup programs.

Tick the boxes of the programs you want to disable and click OK to continue. Reboot your system and check if everything is working fine.

You can always re-enable the disabled startup programs by re-opening the System Configuration Utility and ticking the boxes of the disabled items.

Reboot your system for the changes to take effect.