The second and again this is my own opinion is the active running processes like you stated above. Most of these programs are shown in the system tray on the bottom right. Often times you can just right click on those programs and under options or settings you can setup the program so it does not auto start. If you do not use and IM or that damn Kodak easy share software all the time then those are great examples of programs that do not need to auto start.

As far as the registry issue goes I have to say that in most cases that is not the culproate and in the cases that it is there are normally other issues going on besides just having a slow computer. At the same time all most all registry cleaning programs in today’s world are far more then just a registry cleaning tool. They often have features like disk cleanup and start-up managers. These two simple tools can go a long ways to speeding up your computer even if your registry is fine so that may not be a bad way to go.