What can I do to close apps that are eating up resources that are running in the background?

1. Stopping a program cannot do permanent damage no matter what. All you need to do is to power your computer off and on and they will restart.

2. Go into settings (or on a machine that old, TASK MANAGER). In particular, look at what is begin started automatically when you reboot. On current machines this will be in Task Manager / Startup. Chances are that there are a dozen or more programs that start the minute you reboot. Most of them are memory wasters.

In my cases, there are 13 on the list, but I disabled seven of them. (Right click on the program name, then select DISABLE on the pop-up)..

I can’t tell you which ones to disable because I don’t know which ones are on your PC. Do some homework on the list and see what’s important. Keep those enabled, and disable the rest.

Third (and scariest) there is a control panel section called Services (SERVICES.MSC) from the search box on the lower left.

This lists all of the services that can run. Some are active, some are disabled, and some are started on demand (unless they are disabled). A lot of them are Microsoft services that can’t be stopped.

Again, you need to do some research. For example, Windows Search is a pig of a program which takes a lot of memory. Disable it. (There are many other search softwares that are faster). Windows Backup is another memory hog. Disable it (and use something else for backup).

When all is said and done, you will probably disable a good dozen programs. SAVE your work and then reboot.

When all is said and done, you will probably disable a good dozen programs. SAVE your work and then reboot.

But above you wrote:
All you need to do is to power your computer off and on and they will restart.

So when he reboots won’t he undo all the work he just did?

If you simply stop the programs by killing them in Task Manager, they’ll restart just fine.

If you make changes to STARTUP or to SERVICES.MSC the changes will stick and be permanent.

Ok, gotcha! Thanks

@KRD When I had the same problem you’re having, I did a lot of research to determine what to do.Once I cleaned up my startup the way @elbanditoroso instructed us. It took me a while to get everything cleaned up because there were so many. Now every 3 to 6 months & definitely NO less than once a year, I go in & clean up what has been added since my last time doing it. That way my computer breathes better on a daily basis & it doesn’t take me as long to do the work.

I NEVER disable anything system related. It’s mostly apps that I’ve added during the year. I also kept a list of what apps I disabled. That way, I can look down my list & enable any that possibly creates a problem that I didn’t anticipate.So far, I’ve NOT had any problems!!! When I signed up for Amazon Prime Music, they added an app that started at startup. It takes maybe ½ second longer to for PM to open without the Prime Music in startup & I don’t use the PM often enough to make that ½ second create a problem for me. I use Firefox for my browser & I still have MS Edge & Google Chrome on my system for “just in case”. The Edge & Chrome definitely don’t need to load every startup & both are HUGE consumers of important space. Although NOT needed often, both serve an important purpose when needed.

Go to “Add or remove Programs” are and Remove any programs that you do not need. I do this periodically.
You can also get the CCleaner app (free) and run it. Once you go through it to trim out space and unwanted items, remove it.

Install Windows 7. ;-)

I don’t use Windows 10, but I assume you can still hit Ctrl-Alt-Delete, choose to start Task Manager, and see what processes are running and how much CPU and memory they’re using, then look up what they are (e.g. by web searching the names of things you don’t recognize) and shut down the crap that you don’t need. There are web sites that list what processes are, whether they can be safely eradicated, and how to get Windows to stop running them.