thirdtime said:
It should be around 30. Preferably less.
Agreed.
I have 19 processes running right now on desktop, 20 when a browser is launched.
I run XP Pro on an old Pent II 400 MHZ PC and it's running pretty nice.
Of course I keep it cleaned and tuned up.
CCleaner is a great free little utility that clears out much of the crap that accumulates while running Windows. It also cleans your registry.
Click on;
start > run > then type,
msconfig in the box, then click OK, then click on the 'startup' tab, to see what's running when you startup your PC.
This will tell you what starts up everytime you bootup.
I have nothing checked here. I unchecked everything.
If you're running any 'widgets' or if you have several icons active on your lower right Taskbar next to the clock, that will slow you down. All that crap uses up PC resources.
Norton & McAfee are pretty bloated also. I dumped them both and use Avast now. Avast is free and uses less PC resources than Norton or McAfee.
Been using Avast since last September with NO problems.