I recently reformatted my PC and I remember a while back, I was directed to a page on these forums about start up programs that are able to be shut down to improve performance with my PC and they helped. I am running windows vista. May someone please direct me to the page or instruct me on how to go about shutting off certain start up programs in vista or settings for my PC to run games smoother. Thank you.

I do not know which page you are referring to that had all the programs listed. But in order to go to see the startup programs do this:

Start>Search for msconfig

There it will list all of the programs and services that will start up on boot, although you will want to be careful what you disable in there. If you dont know what a service/program is, then dont disable it.

For some reason, most of the sites I see don't recommend using MSCONFIG to shut down services..... As for a good tweak site. Try http://www.blackviper.com/website.

Thank you.

Why? As long as you research the service, what's the issue with disabling it? The only annoyance I have run into with that method is duplicated Startup (MSCONFIG) entries.

Why? I don't really know.... I have heard "explanations"..... but, it didn't really mean much to me. It just seems to be one of those "universal mysteries", that has become commonly accepted. Most of the 'tweak' sites I use as references suggest NOT using msconfig for service, but, don't have a problem using it to turn off programs that normally load on startup. Seem microsoft has an issue with that as well.... along with some others..... but, as there is not a better/easier way to do so, msconfig works just fine for me for that job.