disable unused services in XP/Win2K - my experience so far

dblbass · Post by **dblbass** » Sun Jan 06, 2002 9:48 pm

Disabling certain functionality in the OS which you won't need will 1) reduce the RAM footprint of the OS (more RAM for rverbs and audio apps is always a good thing!); 2)in some cases free up a few CPU cycles; and 3) usually lead to greater stability (the less stuff going on in the OS, the less opportunity for conflicts.

One or two posts in the XP/Win2K setup thread have noted one or two services which can be knocked out; here's a trick I've used to lose a lot more:

Go into services - a few ways in, one is through control panel/accesories/services.

Each item in the list of services can be set as Disabled, Manual (meaning it starts only if some other program of service call for it), or Automatic (meaning it is started whether needed or not at boot-time).

You can find out which ones you really need by doing the following:

For each Service you find on Automatic, reset it to Manual. Be sure to write down the names of any Services changed.

Then restart system and use it for a while, doing the sort of things you usually do in both the OS and in your main Apps.

Then go back in to Services and see which ones you set to Manual have been started anyway. These are probably the only ones you need.

BUT, WARNING !! First time I tried this, I got into some problems, and I needed to restore from a Ghost image. Second time, I did it more incrementally, and so far, so good. I'm down to only around 15 or so services which are Manual but started anyway, plus another 6-8 still on Auto. I'd like to nuke most of these as well, but one step at a time.

Below is a list of the ones I still have on Auto. Comments welcome, and I'll update also if I succesfully kill these with no problem. (note, my DAW machine (XP pro) has no network and no internet. YMMV)

Eventlog - This is an exception to the above. My OS won't let me set this to anything but Auto.

Help & Support Center - I'm still using this alot, as I'm new to XP and didn't migrate from Win2k. Presume killing this off once I now longer need it shouldn't be a problem.

Logical Disk Manager - Not sure yet whether I still need this. A service noted as dependent on this (LDM Administration Service) is now on Manual and not being started, so I suspect I can lose this one also. From the description it sounds like this would be needed if one is re-partitioning HDs. I'll leave this alone till my new XP setup is more established.

Plug and Play - There is a dire warning noted in this service's explantion that this should not be stopped. I DO have "P&P OS" set to "No" in the BIOS but I'm not completely clear how these two relate to one another. I'll leave alone for now.

Remote Procedure Call - I think with no Network or Internet I could lose this. Will try and report back here. Right now a few dependencies are listed but I think I can lose them.

Windows Audio - Presume this is necessary for Wave drivers to work, and probably other bits such as ASIO. I won't mess with this.

Windows Management Instrumentation - another dire warning is offered against disabling this. anyone know if it can be safely done?

That's all I have left on Auto. After a little more fiddling, plus feedback here from others, I'll re-work this info into a posting on the XP/Win2K setup thread.

subhuman · Post by **subhuman** » Mon Jan 07, 2002 10:28 am

I have a list of all the services I've disabled with success already, just a matter of time before I update the 2k/XP thread with that info. Also have a bunch more links I should add. Maybe this week. I still think 2K/XP isn't quite there yet, hence me taking my time updating the info there. But maybe with Logic 5... and we'll see what NAMM brings Jan 14-21 eh?

at0m · Post by **at0m** » Thu Jan 10, 2002 6:04 pm

Here's some stuff I left out. It's easy to make it up for your own settings: create a new hardware configuration, disable per hardware configuration, and you can always take the other hardware setup on boot -if Windoze doesn't boot anymore.

Alerter
Automatic Updates
Cryptographic Services
Distributed Link Tracking Client
Error Reporting Service
Fast User Switching Compatibility
Human Interface Device Access
Help and Support
Indexing Service
IPSEC Services
Logical Disk Manager (& Service)
Messenger
MGABGEXE (Matrox video card users only)
Plug and Play
Portable Media Serial Number
Print Spooler
Protected Storage
Remote Access Auto Connection Manager
Remote Registry
Routing and Remote Access
Secondary Logon
Shell Hardware Detection
Smart Card & helper
TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper
Telephony
Terminal Services
Themes
Uninterruptible Power Supply
Volume Shadow Copy
Windows Image Acquisition (WIA)
Windows Time
Wireless Zero Configuration

I have 15 processes started in my 'Services' (auto & man) and still running LAN and sharing files. But watch out, you might need other stuff then me. There's an explanation of each service in the editor, make sure you kinda know what you're doing.

the atom.

_________________
Powerful computers beep whenever you press a key or whenever the screen changes. Some computers also slow down the output on the screen so that it doesn't go faster than you can read.

[ This Message was edited by: atomic on 2002-01-10 18:13 ]

at0m · Post by **at0m** » Tue Jan 15, 2002 11:01 am

[ This Message was edited by: atomic on 2002-01-18 22:09 ]

Michu · Post by **Michu** » Tue Jan 15, 2002 11:51 am

did you check log in event viewer?
i don't know about win2k/xp but in old nt4 it can be helpful.

at0m · Post by **at0m** » Tue Jan 15, 2002 9:53 pm

cheers, i re-engaged some services, it's working fine now. seems like my ISP didn't like me swapping connections from one pc to the other

at0m · Post by **at0m** » Thu Jan 31, 2002 4:25 am

I also found out that enabling or disabling Services doesn't seem to make any difference on SiSoft Sandra's benchmarks. Also, Intel ATA100 drivers are as good as Microsoft's. Don't see any reason to update/change the drivers.

dblbass · Post by **dblbass** » Thu Jan 31, 2002 8:46 pm

don't know how enable services affect benchmark performance test results, but I think its also a RAM issue (ever bit I strip out of OS load fees up room for apps and samples) and a stability issue - granted, XP's pretty darn stable.

witchstar · Post by **witchstar** » Mon Feb 04, 2002 7:37 pm

Regarding the Services in Windows XP:

Honestly, this has to be one of XP's biggest improvements over it's descendants, because it's all pretty much spelled out here for you.
I recommend anyone interested in disabling some Services for performance do what I did:
- take the time (it took me about 2 hours) to look through each Service, and all of it's Dependencies, and make an intelligent evaluation for yourself as to what do do with it
- I've found it very helpful to make 2 different hardware and user profiles with the same names, one for Music and one for Whatever, as the LogOn Tab in Services allows you to enable/disable for each indifidual profile; I've basically left the Whatever profile's Services alone, and turned off a ton of things in the Music profile (including my Ethernet card in Device Manager);

At any rate, my real point is that it's better to do your own footwork and make your own decisions on this one, rather than doing what someone else is doing, I think...

Mark

at0m · Post by **at0m** » Wed Feb 06, 2002 2:00 pm

Hi Mark, I have DAW and General profile too. Left everything alone in General, one time in DAW I got down to 3 Running Services. Imagine, only desktop colour and Winkey-R to serve yourself on WinXPlite

Wasn't quite solid, doh!

I think 8-10 services should be realistic for DAW, without any goodies, log-on, security or network stuff.

I agree that every installation/setup might require specific Services, but there's loads of Services that we can group and eliminate if you ie. don't use networking.

A note: This Service disabling is not likely to improve performance. It will only give you another 20MB free RAM

: As long as you don't actually transfer at high data speeds on the network, your LAN card will not interfere w Pulsar.

Another trick: set services to manual, and they will probably not start untill you need them. Ie. untill you open your internet applications. Like on a Mac

After a while, Windows unloads these Services again. I know somewhere in the Win Reg there's a time setting to flush unused manual services. Don't remember exactly where I've seen it though...

atomic.

[ This Message was edited by: atomic on 2002-02-06 14:16 ]

[ This Message was edited by: atomic on 2002-02-06 14:20 ]

sandrob · Post by **sandrob** » Sun Mar 17, 2002 4:16 pm

NVIDIA Driver Helper Service (nvidia users)

sandrob · Post by **sandrob** » Sun Mar 17, 2002 4:33 pm

ooooooooops!
which service i must restore if i want that windows remeber user names and login passwords

?

i hope it's not NVIDIA Driver Helper Service

Spirit · Post by **Spirit** » Sun Mar 17, 2002 4:57 pm

I suggest a new title for SandroB:

"Totally Obssesed XP Geek"

Is XP behaving yet ? Pops gone ? I might be your little partner soon: I'm about to get a P4 with XP (but with Asus P4B266 mobo) !

[ This Message was edited by: Spirit on 2002-03-17 16:59 ]

ModularMadness · Post by **ModularMadness** » Mon Mar 18, 2002 6:46 am

As long as you don't actually transfer at high data speeds on the network, your LAN card will not interfere w Pulsar.

I guess that's not entirely correct, some networking cards have a nasty behavior, they hang onto the PCI bus for as much as 115 cycles. You can see this effect by using wpcredit. This could interfere with a Pulsar card. But most newer networking cards have much better drivers and don't need that much "interaction" with the system anymore.

ModularMadness