Windows XP Services - which ones to disable?

M

mmm

Hello,

I'm looking to tweak my XP to maximize performance.

There are a number of web sites that suggest which XP services one can disable, but that you need to experiement to see if your system configuration will run properly for your needs. My favorite site for this that I've found is http://www.blackviper.com/

I was hoping that I could leverage off your experimentation. If you had successfully disabled as many Windows XP services as possible, and are still able to trade over the internet with it, could you please share which services you disabled / automatically started / manually started?

Thanks.

-- MMM
 
Quote from mmm:

Hello,

I'm looking to tweak my XP to maximize performance.

There are a number of web sites that suggest which XP services one can disable, but that you need to experiement to see if your system configuration will run properly for your needs. My favorite site for this that I've found is http://www.blackviper.com/

I was hoping that I could leverage off your experimentation. If you had successfully disabled as many Windows XP services as possible, and are still able to trade over the internet with it, could you please share which services you disabled / automatically started / manually started?

Thanks.

-- MMM
More...

Are you running the Home edition or Pro?
Do you have a home network in addition to the Internet?
Thanks
 
Yes, I am running Windows XP Pro.

I have a simple home based network: cable modem, router, switches, wireless access points.

I connect to my broker and charting software of the internet. Use email and surf the web.

The additional hardware that I use are a wireless networking card, CD-RW drive, the floppy drive, a Palm PDA cradle via USB, and a printer attached via the home network.

Thanks.

-- MMM
 
Quote from mmm:

Yes, I am running Windows XP Pro.

I have a simple home based network: cable modem, router, switches, wireless access points.

I connect to my broker and charting software of the internet. Use email and surf the web.

The additional hardware that I use are a wireless networking card, CD-RW drive, the floppy drive, a Palm PDA cradle via USB, and a printer attached via the home network.

Thanks.

-- MMM
More...

I would turn off the IIS Admin Service and related Web services, like World Wide Web Server, FTP Server, SMTP Server, Telnet, etc. Also, you can probably do without Messenger Service as well.

As for the others, if you are not sure what it is, research it individually and make an informed decision. Also check out the above links another member posted (I forget which member).

If all you are doing is what you stated above, your computer should be fine unless it is pretty old.
 
I used that site and just used the safe settings. Then, "one at a time" I disabled some. Be careful with the network stuff if you are cable, dsl or sharing or you might need to re-install to find your way back.

Michael B.

P.S. I have both XP home and Pro on different computers.
 
Aside from any "server" type processes (WWW, FTP, Telnet, Remote Registry, etc.) - most of which are already hopefully not actually running - you might want to disable the Indexing Service (unless you do a whole lot of file searches - it's a waste) and/or set all your disk to non-Indexed.

Most of these services consume very little to zero CPU and many of them may just be enabled but not started. If you have a service that's actually started, be sure you know exactly what it does before disabling it. A lot of third party software now use custom system services.

Are you trying to speed up your machine or reduce it's steady state memory footprint (which with memory so cheap might not be worth some people risking messing around with system services)?
 
I use the Ultimate Troubleshooter at

http://www.answersthatwork.com

It's not free but will give you an explanation of each of the known services, start up programs, what's running and allows you to disable and set each to run with startup or not as you wish right from the program.
 
if you mess around with services.msc, make sure you back up your data.

i don't disable anything but I do set some things to manual.

Powertoys for XP is a good place to start tweaking you system.

we will hold the tissue paper when you come crying because you hosed your machine.
 
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