Any advice on startup programs and processes?

I'm just starting to go about cleaning up the amount of running programs and processes on my z61t. There's a ton of ThinkVantage stuff that loads at startup, and I know I can do a custom reinstall to selectively decide what I want. Before going through all that, I'm want to just uninstall the things I definitely don't need/want and remove from startup (via MSCONFIG) the things I want to stop from running all the time.

Anyone have any thoughts on Diskeeper Lite, PC Doctor 5, WinDVD, and all the sonic stuff in the "Multimedia Center"? It's nice the utilities are included with the system, but if there are alternate options that are low-cost but superior, I'll consider swapping them out. Also, can I just strip out NetWaiting and Digital Line Detect...does anyone know what they do? There's the whole other issue of the installed Symantec apps and I know there's lots of opinions on that as well.

As for the Thinkpad and ThinkVantage apps...what's the general consensus on which are not needed? Seems like they have a lots of things set to run all the time, when they can be disabled and run manually when needed.

Finally, I have the system set to log on with a fingerprint, but it's really not very helpful and seems to slow startup quite a bit. It's also VERY annoying that there's no feedback when it makes a scan (either positive or negative).

Sorry for the long post, any input would be greatly appreciated....

 

I'll tell you what I do, but some alternative software I paid for so.

The only ThinkVantage software I have left is Access Help, Active Protection System, Help Center, Power Manager, Presentation Director, Software Installer, System Update, ThinkPad Confguration, and UltraNav Wizard. I disabled everything that came with the System from starting up (including Services) that is not part of Power Manager, Active Potection System, ATI (I have X1400), SoundMAX, and the Touchpad Software (Synaptics is part of it). I allow Bluetooth to still start up (don't know if you have it) since I do use it occasionally. I disabled Digital Line Detect (its to detect if you're plugging your modem into a digital line so it will protect it) since I don't use my Modem and if I had to I could start it up before I do. I also disabled System Update from starting up in services since I manually check, though that service has to be started manually to do checks if you do that.

I also uninstalled ALL the preconfigured software, except NetWaiting (but disabled it to start up). I use Raxco's PerfectDisk as my Defragger, Tuneup Utilities 2007 as my Windows Diagnosis, Prime95 and Memtest86+ to test CPU and Memory if needed, IMGBurn and Nero as my CD burning software, I use K-Lite's Mega Codec Pack with Media Player Classic and VLC for all my Media playing needs (includes DVDs), Mcafee VirusScan 7.03 Pro/Avast/Windows Defender/TrojanHunter/Ad-Aware/Spybot/ZoneAlarm Free as my Security Solutions (though only Mcafee is set to startup, the other solutions I use on Demand), and I use Acronis True Image Home for my backup and Recovery solutions.

I did eventually uninstalled Client Security Solutions as the increased boot times was annoying as hell. I did leave the fingerprint software intact so I can logon with my fingerprint, but it doesn't increase the load time (at least I can't tell) so

So my start up process list is now less than 50 and I consume less than 300MB of RAM. Compare that with 80+ process and 400+MB of RAM when I got the laptop.

PS Windows Firewall is completely disabled.