On my computer. Dell Pentium IV 1.8 gigahertz 512 MB Rambus memory 40 GB 7200 RPM hard drive ethernet card cable modem Windows XP Dragon NaturallySpeaking software for speech recognition, version 6 preferred pinnacle studio 7 Sony TRV 20 camcorder 80 GB Maxtor 7200 for backup and video input Vegas video three editing software Should I be concerned with shutting these processes down? About 40 of them run at the same time. But if I understand correctly that is not a problem I should be concerned with when utilizing Windows XP.

what processes are you thinking of shutting down? Or are you trying to say that you have all of those programs running at the same time? (ie: 3 editing software running at once, etc) Don't manually shut down processes unless they're causing problems...either shut them down through their programs or through the services list. If several processes keep fighting over the cpu, you might want to consider shutting some of them down...

Another way to eliminate some processes is the "Startup" tab in the "System Configuration Utility". To open this, click START, then RUN, then type: msconfig , then click OK. Find the the "Startup Item" that you want to dispose of, and uncheck its box, and click OK. USE CAUTION. Item names are not in plain language. For example: If you want to get rid of the gray Desktop Icon that is always on top of all your programs, then uncheck "WksSb". NOW, every time you start your computer, a dialoge box will appear saying that you have made changes to your computer. SO, in it, check the box for "Do not tell me again" (or what ever it said).