Browsing on fileplanet for some of the lastest demos, I did come across a little game booster that closes all the non-essential processes. Helps with games with Quake and Oblivion.
The program is a no brainer- just press the button Switch to gaming mode and it closes non-essential progs. Then press NORMAL after you play.
Game booster
For technies- Of course you can always do this yourself in windows run menu. Just type services.msc in RUN and see all the things that slow you PC down.
On another note on the Microsoft TECHNET site is a program that lists the processes and threads. Called PROCESS EXPLORER
Process explorer at MS TECH
I haven't used the big SYSinternals Suite on that website yet. But I am sure that is more useful for other issues, as it is the all in one solution.
For me I just wanted to examine the running processes. Hope it helps