Horde3D

Follow these steps to reduce windowsxp and other apps startups [such as IDE, compiler, games, ...]:

1.Terminate all of your active apps then press Ctrl+Shift+Esc [I hate Ctrl+Alt+Del ] to start Windows Task Manager then go to the Processes tab.
2.File > New Task (Run...) > "rundll32.exe advapi32.dll, ProcessIdleTasks"
3.Now take a look at processes list to ensure that these processes exists* : rundll32.exe, defrag.exe, dfrgntfs.exe [During this process don't touch your mouse and keyboard]

If you look at your HDD LED you will see that it's hardworking.This will take a few minutes (on some systems it takes ~1 hour)
During this process the windows prefetches the things needed to boot windows and start other apps. This process occures when system is idle but in most of systems don't occures. By using this command you will enforce the windows to do this.

*If the rundll32.exe starts and exits quickly you must ensure that Task Scheduler [go to run and type "services.msc"] is not disabled on your system. If the problem occures again perhaps prefetching service is disabled in your registry [I cant remember the registry key but do some google to find it or use free tweaking apps such as freshui to enable prefetching on both boot and apps]