Invasion of the icons

Dear PropellerHeads: Every time I look in the lower-right portion of my screen, I see more and more little icons down there. Should I be concerned and what can I do to get rid of them?

A: I believe you are talking about the Windows Taskbar, and in particular, what Microsoft calls the Notification Area. The current time and the volume controls are almost guaranteed to be there. I call it Little Sicily because to quote a mafia expression, each icon represents "a cut off the top" of your available memory.

Most of these icons represent a startup program that gets launched every time your computer is turned on or somebody logs in. You are wise in your desire to curb their number, because chances are you don't need most of them and running too many at once can leave your computer's memory as bogged down as Vinnie in concrete galoshes.

Windows allows you to customize the Notification area to a certain degree. You can hide most of these icons, although it won't free up any memory or CPU. So at least it will look clean, even if it truly isn't.

Head to the Control Panel > Appearance & Personalization > Customize icons on the taskbar. For each icon, you can configure to show it, hide it, or only show notifications. For me almost all are the last option (which means they don't clutter my taskbar, but if something happens, I know about it).

The next thing to consider is that a number of those rats are probably just notifications that an update exists for some program you have installed. To help curb these I use a two-prong approach.

First, I have a little program installed called Update Freezer (updatefreezer.org). This white knight allows you to set the schedule for the most common self-updating applications you are likely to have installed. You can also disable them entirely, which is what I do except for Windows updates.

Mmm, hear that CPU roar now. But wait, what kind of insane fool wouldn't perform updates? That's like not paying the capos their tribute. Relax. That is where my second savior comes into play, Ninite (ninite.com).

I first discovered Ninite because it makes installing lots of freeware applications on new PCs insanely easy. Just check off what programs you want (there are dozens), then you will receive a small setup program that will download and install each of the programs you selected in turn. Ninite is nice because it disables all the useless stuff for you (I'm talking about you, AskJeeves toolbar!).

But the next time you run Ninite, it will update all of those same programs to their latest version. I run it every week or two. By combining Update Freezer with Ninite, I'm in complete control of my updates. So no more of my precious startup memory will be used for keeping Guido off my back.

Now, let's look at the rest of those startup programs. If you have Acrobat Reader or iTunes installed, feel free to raise a menacing fist in the direction of Adobe or Apple now. Those two are the worst offenders.

I must emphasize before I continue that if you don't know what you are doing, a major downside of whacking startup programs is that you may unintentionally break a feature that you really can't live without, and you might not notice it for days or weeks. That is why creating a restore point before doing anything below is a must.

For cleaning up my startup programs, I use a tool called WhatInStartup (www.nirsoft.net/utils) because it goes out to the various places where startup programs are defined for you and you newbies don't have to muck around with the Registry Editor.

In a few cases it is pretty obvious what a program does, but for many you are going to need a little help. Right click on the entry and select "Google Search - Executable Name." At the top of the results will be a number of websites like file.net, shouldiblockit.com, bleepingcomputer.com and processlibrary.com.

These websites will give you an indication of what the startup program does and how safe it is for you to disable it. If you have any doubts, just leave a startup program running.

When the PropellerHeads at Data Directions aren't busy with their IT projects, they love to answer questions on business or consumer technology. Email them to questions@askthepropellerheads.com or contact us at Data Directions Inc., 8510 Bell Creek Road, Mechanicsville, VA 23116. Visit our website at www.askthepropellerheads.com.