CraigB
2
You could use Speccy from Piriform http://www.piriform.com/speccy for monitoring just about everything on your system, as for decision making I think that would be left to personal preference.
To gain better system performance it’s always a good idea to shut down any unneeded processes from startups, CCleaner from Piriform http://www.piriform.com/blog/2013/4/25/ccleaner-v401 can help to monitor startups and gives the option to disable them, it’s cleaning abilities also surpass the windows built in Disc Cleaner.