Programs Running In The Background XP

I may be a geek, but i am not a very knowledgable one. I have a computer I have found much much adware on. THey have been deleted, but this baby is slow as molasses. It is a celeron, and loads and runs slower than a pentium running windows 98.

I think there is too much running in the background, but I can't figure out how to check that or how to stop and delete them.

Can any of you higher level geeks with more geek experience help me figure out what to do? My gratitude would be endless.
Many Thanks;
John

Here are the specs....

celeron processor running XP
1400 MHz
1.39GHz
128 Ram
8.6GB hard drive
been defragged, programs and junk deleted, ran systemworks

 

To check what's running at startup, go to Start, Run, and type in msconfig , startup tab.

Basically the less programs you have listed there the better. To give you an example I only have 4 listings.

However, some programs are vital and should not be disabled, so post back if you are unsure.

I also prefer to use the programs settings to stop it from starting with Windows rather than just unchecking items through msconfig.

There are some excellent freeware applications like Process Explorer, AutoRun and Mike Lin's StartUp, which are all freeware and available from the downloads section.