Windows XP processes, how many should be running?

[Gravitykillr]

I've been experiencing some lag while playing some online games lately and I'm not sure if my connection is just bad or if I have too much stuff running in the background. Does anyone know what would be a good amount of processes running, I think with my computer it's anywhere between 50-65 processes running all at once depending on what games I'm playing, is this way to much and what can I do to get the amount down? thanks for any help you can give.

[Hack&Lube]

This depends on your computer and what programs you need. I like having as few as possible. I only have about 25 including essential processes. When I game, I kill all non-essentials and I'm down to like 15 or less.

What you can is check out the list and figure out what you don't need. Then track those programs down and stop them loading in the background or when you startup (use msconfig)

[Rathji]

I would kill everything that is nonessential.

[Ayrahb]

try http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm

[photon]

I've got about 30 and that's keeping it down to a minimum for me, it really does depend on what you've got installed. For example iTunes throws 3 in there :( or if you install Acrobat reader it'll always try to put stuff in there. Mouse software (Logitech!), video card software, anti-virus, anti-spyware, firewall, etc.. they add up pretty fast.

[MelBridgeman]

i kill everything with msconfig....

[Bobblehead]

Unless it is actively doing any processing, don't worry about how many processes you see.

If they aren't doing anything they will get swapped off into the pagefile.

Anti-virus and anti-spyware will kill your performance since they often want to check each file being opened, as well as actively running in the background. I'd kill those, but the rest don't worry about.

You should look through your processes every once in a while just so you know what is running, but if they are all valid then the only thing they will do is slow down the boot-up.

(and that Blackviper site is a placebo. It doesn't really help, and for people unfamiliar with what they are doing, they can create big issues)

Seriously, if your system isn't using something, it will get paged out of memory so you really don't need to worry about shutting down a lot of processes.