control alt delete question

In previous windows when you control alt delete your first screen was all the installed programs running, and in the background.... seems abit confusing in xp.... I know in processes there is but that shows EVERYTHING running... on my other computers occasionally I would find programs running where I had no idea what it was..... later to find it was a program that got installed with another without me knowing... for example, one was a program to track my surfing... and so I was able to rid my pc of that crap. In processes there's just to much to sift through to know whats what. any help with this.. or am i looking in the wrong place.......... Joel

 

If you click the Applications tab it is about the same as Windows 9x/Me. Processes are system tasks you normally don't have to worry about.

 

applications just show you programs in the foreground... not the background....

 

Not really foreground per se.

However you are somewhat correct in that you won't be able to see Spyware that is running without sifting through processes.

You will become quickly used to seeing what should, and should not be on there though.

Have you tried using Ad-Aware from Lavasoft? That does a pretty good job of sniffing down and killing the spyware, which seems to be your real concern.