I'm running Windows XP and the Firefox browser. My question is (this may sound dumb)but how do you REMOVE programs from the system tray? I have a dell notebook and I want to free up some system resources. please help!   UNINSTALL them.  Go to Control Panel, Add or Remove Programs, and uninstall them.  Now, I HOPE you're not going to uninstall important programs such as firewall and anti-virus. 

I also suggest you use Task Manager to see how many processes you have running at various times and whether any of them are obviously hogging CPU resources. 

Have you experienced some degradation in performance?  Are you currently using some spyware removal tools to keep your system clean?  Ever used CCleaner?  Do you ever defragment your hard drive?  No I'm not planning on removing anything of any importance. But I have Icons from programs that I have already deleted that I would like to remove. yes I defrag regularly and I use a reg.fix PROGRAM any advice would be greatly appreciated.  Well, if you've deleted a program that placed an icon in the system tray when it was installed, that should remove the icon.  Understand? 

HOW did you delete those programs?  What "reg.fix program" do you use?Yes I do know that. I used the add remove programs but the Icons have remained the registry fix that I use is called reg fix from regfix.comOK, so you understand that you have an abnormal situation there, right?

You say http://www.regfix.com/.  Take a look.  Does that look like a software site?

I suggest you reinstall these programs you've "UNINSTALLED" and uninstall again.  Let's see whether this works right and, if not, see whether we can figure out why.Sorry that link is http://www.registryfix.com