this is a problem I asked about before... and I didn't quite trust the advice...

The problem was that: if you go to the taskbar > right click > go to properties > customize icons, there are so many which i wanna get rid of because i have uninstalled them. The advice which i got was: press ctrl+alt+del and then Task Manager. find explorer.exe and end the process. but the this window pops up and give me a warning... should i go through with it???

HELP D-A-L.com!!

PS: what would happen if i ended any of the proccess' which look like they're taking A LOT of 'Mem Usage'?

dont stop explorer!! explorer is basically the system process that allows you to navigate around your pc. explorer does take up alot of memory, but you wont change that for as long as your running MS operating systems.
If you want to remove those little icons at the bottom-right of your screen, then go into the properites as described to you, go to 'customize' on the 'task-bar' tab and here you can change whether you see certain icons all the time or not. Id be very surprised if any invalid icons were here, as form what i understand, windows will quickly put items that arent used often, into the 'past items' area.
if your saying about deleting buttons from your 'start-menu', then thats quite easy. Go to C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu. In here you will find some shortcuts that appear at the head of the start menu but these are usually shortcuts that you want, so open the 'programs' folder, and most of your short-cuts will be there. you may wish to open the 'startup' folder too. this will contain shortcuts for programs that you want to automatically start when windows starts/you log-on. delete any that you either dont want to start automatically, or that are no longer installed.
you may wish to clean your user-account related folder C:\Documents and Settings\your user name\Start Menu. again, its the same set-up, but lets you customise your start-up folder, without afecting other start-up menus for other user accounts.
If you wish to clear the 'most recently opened' applications, go right click taskbar>properties>start-menu tab>customise. here you can change various things. you want to click the box in the 'programs' area that says 'clear'.
Also, if you have a good registry repair application, you should use this as it will find any shortcuts that point to invalid files, and will give you the chance to fix/delte the shortcuts.
Whenever you want to uninstall an application, try to use the uninstall wizard that came with the application, if there is one. they tend to a more thorough job, than removing programs by doing a 'add/remove programs' procedure, via the control panel.

Originally Posted by amerhabib

this is a problem I asked about before... and I didn't quite trust the advice...

That advice http://www.d-a-l.com/help/showthread.php?t=1910 was a Microsoft Support Document How to Clear Past Items from the Notification Area

It stated: "To clear the Past Items list, perform the following steps:

1) Delete the "IconStreams" and "PastIconsStream" values from the following registry key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ Software\ Microsoft\ Windows\ CurrentVersion\ Explorer\ TrayNotify

2) Open Task Manager, click the Processes tab, click Explorer.exe, and then click End Process.

3) In Task Manager, click File, click New Task, type explorer, and then click OK."

In other words you change the registry: end the process: then re-start the process. Kinda like a manual re-boot.

I have done this and it works.

Originally Posted by amerhabib

PS: what would happen if i ended any of the proccess' which look like they're taking A LOT of 'Mem Usage'?

This is a what's what of XP processes & services that you can control

Black Viper

And more important to your system is the CPU Usage rather than the Mem Usage. Your System Idle Process, which should be at the bottom should be like 95-99% if you are not doing anything, (idle).

Having the task manager open uses about 2% & an idle cpu should use 1 or 2%. If you are down there you're running pretty smooth!