Care to explain why Van?

Is it like the registry on the older Windoze?  

My boss gave me his laptop to keep up with some record keeping but this thing is loaded down with junk! Makes some programs slow to a crawl!

Has printer software running that is not even hooked up, scanner, I-pod and some other stuff that I don't even know what it is.

I'm very comfortable messing in the registry and startup etc with my own  computers but kind of leery of it on someone elses. Plus this thing has XP home, all I'm used to is ME and 98 SE.