First - help with 'startups'...

There are lots of services on your PC that are probably turned on by default
you don't use.  Why have them on?  Check out these web pages to see what all
of the services you might find on your computer are and set them according
to your personal needs.  Be CAREFUL what you set to manual, and take heed
and write down as you change things!  Also, don't expect a large performance
increase or anything - especially on today's 2+ GHz machines, however - I
look at each service you set to manual as one less service you have to worry
about someone exploiting.

Service Configuration Tips
http://www.tweakhound.com/xp/xptweaks/supertweaks6.htm

Configuring Services
http://smallvoid.com/tweak/winnt/services.html

Task List Programs
http://www.answersthatwork.com/Tasklist_pages/tasklist.htm

Processes in Windows NT/2000/XP
http://www.reger24.de/prozesse/

There are also applications that AREN'T services that startup when you start
up the computer/logon.  One of the better description on how to handle these
I have found here:

Startups
http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_content.php

Second - a program that allows you to 'hot swap' a laptop battery?

I do not see how a program could do that.  You could hibernate and swap the
batteries and then come up out of hibernation - but you aren't *truly*
hot-swapping doing that.  It's 'save system state, do what you want, return
to system state'.  A true hot-swap could be done by having the laptop
plugged into power, removing the battery, putting in the new battery.  You
could then unplug the old battery.

As for the optional updates - unless you install something that needs them -
don't bother.  You will *know* when you install something that needs them
because either it will tell you or it just won't work.  .NET is *not* just
for developers - in the end many people have used it for such things as
video drivers, etc.

*All* applications use memory, and unless that memory hasn't been
recently used (in which case it's in the page file) it's RAM. It has
nothing to do with whether the application is preinstalled.

Here's my standard post on autostarting programs:

On each program you don't want to start automatically, check its
Options to see if it has the choice not to start (make sure you
actually choose the option not to run it, not just a "don't show icon"
option). Many can easily and best be stopped that way. If that doesn't
work, run MSCONFIG from the Start | Run line, and on the Startup tab,
uncheck the programs you don't want to start automatically.

However, if I were you, I wouldn't do this just for the purpose of
running the minimum number of programs. Despite what many people tell
you, you should be concerned, not with how *many* of these programs
you run, but *which*. Some of them can hurt performance severely, but
others have no effect on performance.

Don't just stop programs from running willy-nilly. What you should do
is determine what each program is, what its value is to you, and what
the cost in performance is of its running all the time. You can get
more information about these at
http://castlecops.com/StartupList.html. If you can't find it there,
try google searches and ask about specifics here.

Once you have that information, you can make an intelligent informed
decision about what you want to keep and what you want to get rid of

Is the machine left on 24/7?

What programmes are you using when the message appears?

Are you using Adobe Acrobat Reader? If yes, which precise version?

Try Ctrl+Alt+Delete to select Task Manager and click the Performance
Tab. Under Commit Charge what is the Total, the Limit and the Peak?

How large is your hard disk and how much free space. Right click on
your C drive in Windows and select Properties to get this information.

How much RAM memory?