Hey Egaladeist

I can't help you with the hardware issue (if there is any) - so I leave that
to the experts. Of course, the less services you have running, the faster
your computer is. However, if you have activated to priorize foreground tasks,
this does not matter much, I think.

But let us try to look at a few security issues.
As per the services...
I might give you some hints. Actually I recommend
theeldergeek.com[1].

- setting automatic is fine for:
Background Intelligent Transfer Service (gets updates while network idle time)

- setting manual might be fine for (depends on your environment)
Remote Access Connection
Telephony
Distributed Link Tracking Client
DHCP Client

- setting disabled is fine for:
Remote Registry Service
RunAs Service
Messenger

However, fine tuning might be adjusted if we know in which environment
this machine is (standalone, LAN) and how it is connected to the internet
(dialup, router, bridge, ...)

As per the running tasks...
mstask.exe for example is the task manager. It ran when you checked for running tasks.
I recommend to use a tool like process explorer[2] which gives you the full path. This is
just an indication, but it might help us further. Most of the tasks looks reasonable
(you have a lexmark printer attached?).

Cheers.

/edit: as per tkbell.exe[3]. liutilities.com-processlibrary is rather useful, however
you have to check what you current have installed on your system. if you have
realplayer and tkbell.exe is where it should, wherever that is , this is fine.


[1] http://www.theeldergeek.com/services_guide.htm
[2] http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/fr.../procexp.shtml
[3] http://www.liutilities.com/products/...ibrary/tkbell/