Memory hogs
Windows did another massive "Update" on my laptop last night - ostensibly only the usual two things it does every night (Security Update, and Malicious Software Removal Tool) but the screen display said there were 771 items. It took several hours to download all the toot via my Voda PAYG Dongle (BT still haven't managed to get Openreach to connect us to the telephone network).
After the update, the nifty performance meter on the desktop showed "idle" CPU usage around 30% (used to be a couple of percent), and "used memory" at 89% (used to be around 50 - 60%). The machine was crawling compared with its previous sprightly performance.
Investigation via MSCONFIG showed that the update has added a second "starter" for a whole bunch of rubbish software that will start at boot-up (iTunes, Quicktime, Adobe Reader, Corel File Share, Corel File Shell Monitor, Windows Mobile Devicer Center (sic) and a couple of dozen others) which I had turned OFF previously because I rarely if ever use them. Not only that, but it had created a second example of all of them - the previous "off" ones were still there as well.
I've turned 'em all off again, and also turned off the Windows Update. I have a little red flag telling me I have done so - that's the "All is well" flag, I suppose.