Too many icons

Have you noticed that your toolbar at the bottom of Windows gets cluttered with all sorts of silly little icons, many of which, you don't know how or why they are there? I have twelve of them right now glaring at me from their home next to the clock. Yes, these sneaky little pictures of runners, disks, cameras, shields, and other things somehow manage to weasle their little pictures onto my toolbar without even so much as a hello. Tracking them down and getting them to go away is very tricky. They are the messy pile of papers on the edge of my otherwise clean virtual computer desktop, and I intend to shred them. Well, at least the ones that I didn't invite to the party. Here's a few tricks to try and get rid of the ones that you don't want. I suggest option 4, but hey that's just me.

Here's a few ways you can try and get them not to start up with Windows.

1. Right click the icon and click options or preferences. See if there is a checkbox somewhere that you can uncheck that says "Run when Windows Starts". Uncheck it.

2. If that doesn't work, there is a little known tool called msconfig that will help you. Go to your start menu. Select "Run..." and type msconfig and tada... the system config box pops up. As a general rule, don't touch anything here unless you know what you're doing, but on the startup tab, you can usually find the icons that you don't want ... like "qttask" (Quicktime) and uncheck the box for them. I don't suggest unchecking something just to find out what happens.

3. If all else fails, don't ever turn your computer on. That way those icons will never show up on the screen. You also won't be able to read my blog anymore because you won't be using your computers and all the more productive your life will be :)

4. If you can't help yourself and find yourself turning your computer on, there is a great tool called a rock. Find one of these versatile tools, preferably a large one, and proceed to beat your computer until it no longer functions.

5. If you don't wish to destroy your computer, then download Linux and spend the rest of your life searching online to figure out how to get it working (see the Linux link on my main blog page). After several months of option 5, you will find yourself reverting back to option 4.