No msconfig.

A computer in the office that I am working at is having too many programs running in the background. To prevent this I usually only select what I want to run there using msconfig. I was under the impression that it was in every make of windows O/S since 98. The computer is a 2000 sp4. I am thinking about upgrading it but don’t want to if I don’t have to. How can I fix the problem of the programs running in the background without msconfig.