Start up
I am not a techie, but the guy who set up my computer was. (XP,3. Avoiding Vista). He set it up and with great confidence told me that nothing should be ticked in my list at msconfig/start up. I can't recommend this for your pc - it may well be the wrong thing to do for yours, - but it works fine for mine.
Annoys the hell out of the kids as their prog.s aren't pre-started. That's good news as it makes them use their own pc.s