Startup Programs

My father is currently running Windows ME on his home computer, and he wants me to fix it. A multitude of programs are running themselves at startup, and an alarmingly high amount of his system resources are being used up. Is anyone else familiar with this OS? Could you just provide a list of all the operations that are necessary to run WinME? I just need a way to easily disable the unnecessary programs so his computer will run more efficiently.

Thankds