Upon starting my machine, and going into the task manager to see my CPU usage and programs that run on start up, antimalware service executable is hogging 60 megs of my memory. This isn't a whole lot since I have 6 gigs of DDR3, but still, it's pointless.

Yet, when I say "end task", I get a warning saying that if I do, my machine will become unstable and shut down. Obviously, this is not something I want. What really happens when you end this process?

OK, that End Task nanny message is there so the most ignorant person in the world won't mess with their PC. The rest of us can move past this message. If you know what the program is, then shut it down and ignore the message about stablity. Of course, you don't want to end Windows Explorer or svchost or something you don't know what it is, you'll need to reboot then. In fact, there is nothing you can do in the task manager that can't be recovered from by a reboot.

If you don't want this program to load with Windows, you can stop the program and or the service in MSCONFIG

So I can end the task and it won't do a thing to my computer?

I mean, after all, it is just an antivirus program. Why would that cause my computer to shut down?