Double click on Programs and Features. There will be a complete list of all programs that are installed on your computer. This is where you get rid of the software that you are sick of and do not use anyway.

Now although they look really special and shinny, it is in my opinion, that you should simply get rid of your gadgets. Any good technician knows that things like weather bug are simply a complete waste of your system resources. If your not sure what I am talking about they are the giant icons on the right hand side of your monitor showing you the time and all that special stuff. You can close out of them and make sure that they do not run on start up from the option right on your desktop. In this case I will show you through the Control Panel.

Here is what it should look like if you have it turned off. Again, in most cases you should just get rid of it, unless you have a sick amount of RAM and CPU power.

Now your starting to get somewhere. Your machine will be close to the type of power you could expect from Windows XP.

Let me introduce you to a new tool in Windows Vista that A lot of people don't like. I can't say that I agree completely. It is called Windows Defender and its going to make it easy for you to reclaim some power.

This will usually be running already in the lower right hand corner of your screen. It's icon will look like a castle. Double click on the icon and you will get the screen as shown above.

Go ahead and click on tools. You will get the following screen.

Now click on Software Explorer.

This is a awesome feature. It makes it very easy for you to get rid of all those programs that accumulated in startup. These days anything you install will try to make you have it run on startup. After a while, your computer will take a day to boot up and will come to a screeching halt, even after it's done loading. Take my advice and remove as much as possible from startup. You can always open the program manually from start, all programs. Something else you may want to check out is, on the drop down there is also a option for currently running programs. If your machine should be good enough and you programs are crashing or the computer gives you a memory dump and reboots. In a lot of cases, simply closing everything you can in currently running programs will do the trick.

Now, there are of course some of you and even me sometimes that are like: Why should I leave Windows Defender running? After all, it does use a bit of resources to. I like the program and suggest you continue to use it. However, if you want that little bit of extra performance, there is a way to get rid of it.

Right click on Computer, left click on manager. You will get the following screen.

Click on Services and Applications and then services. Scroll all the way down to the W section and double click on Windows Defender.

Click on Stop and set the startup type to disabled as shown.

I think this raps up my tutorial on how to reclaim your lost computer power. Don't believe the hype right away before giving things a shot. People hate every new operating system that comes out because it's new.

Although, you may notice that you still have some RAM that is being used all the time. For example look at this.

Ouch 700 MB of my RAM. What the heck is going on here? Well, if I wasn't doing anything on my computer at all and waited long enough, I could get it as low as 300 MB. Just remember, this isn't anything new. In Windows XP I have never seen it take more then 256MB hostage. You have to remember the better the software the more power its going to take. I doubt that Microsoft Operating systems will ever be changing that.

You could always get a degree or spend months of time studying and go with a completely customizable operating system. If this is what your looking for, I suggest Gentoo Linux. It's a lot of hard work and study. It will never be as easy on you as Windows. However, if you know what your doing you can gain complete control of what is running on your computer. I like it for programming and web design. Otherwise, I do still enjoy Windows Operating systems for most stuff.