[evereddie]

Quote:

going through XP's services is definately the best way to control a program starting up

That is good for services but will not help much with actual programs like 'Office fast find' and quicktime, and 'real player'. These have to be disabled in startup or using a third party utility as pointed out above in several posts.

Also don't forget that almost all programs have a setting that will prevent them from starting on boot-up. Look around in each and stop it this way first. It is by far the best way to stop a program from loading.