I’d just like to point out that perhaps the whole concept of the OP is a little misdirected. I am guessing that you don’t really care how many applications are listed in “Close Program”, but rather you want to make sure that your memory, Virtual Memory and CPU are not being overly taxed by those applications (or better, the processes those applications run).
I’m a bit of a diehard Windows 2000 user who for the past few months has been using Windows 98 for the first time. In W2K, when you press control-alt-delete, you get an option for Task Manager. In Task Manager, you can see all the applications (and close them, like in W98’s “Close Program”), and more importantly you can go to the Processes, and see how much system resources each process takes.
For many of the applications you list, you might find that they actually use zero resources (when not in actual use), and you might not care after that to remove them. Other apps you might use a lot, like Office, or Internet Explorer, and you would find that they use more resources than you’d like, and you could try to get them to use less.
The System Tray can be even more deceiving. I noticed that you shut off the volume – I highly doubt that will use less system resources. Other tasks that you disable might have even less desirable effects. For example, by disabling Task Scheduler, you might very well be cancelling your periodic virus scan (Norton uses it for scheduling).
Unfortunately, I haven’t found anyway to determine resource use with Windows 98. It would not at all surprise me if there was some third-party program that would show you.
But one thing I can recommend for more information:
Run msinfo32. Open the menu to System Information | Software Environment | Running Tasks.
Here you will see more applications than appear in “Close Programs”, as well as fairly detailed descriptions.
Basically, when it comes to apps running, less is not always more. Remember what you want your computer to do – or in your case, since you’re on a Novell network, what your employer wants your computer to do. Once you are sure it is doing everything you want it to do, then try to trim some of the fat.
I can tell you from personal experience that if you are trying to disable applications from a company computer and you don’t know what you are doing, that you will likely annoy a sys admin. I could tell you stories of users who were only trying to make their machines run better…