Windows 7: optimizing performace

hie everyone... i seem to a have a little problem with ma startup services... if i start all of them, my PC becomes slower... so i decided to deactivate most of the useless ones...THE PROBLEM is that i do not know which drivers i should not mess with... i need my sound and my internet.... i really have to deactivate most of these services or else the system just freezez 70% of the time and i use msconfig...

please help.. someone...

I assume you are talking about services, rather than startup programs. They are shown in a different tab of msconfig.

There are some so-called guides on what services can be safely turned off, but they can be unreliable.

I just looked at my services directly (not from msconfig).

I have 10 disabled, 46 set to automatic, and 96 on manual.

9 of the manuals are running right now. 41 of the automatics are running right now.

I don't have any performance issues and have good response and boot in under a minute.

Are you running a low powered processor that might not be too fast under the best of circumstances?

Windows 7 has already been optimized as lean as it can be. Service edits that were used to gain back performance in XP and early Vista are no longer necessary as everything not needed at startup is already set to Manual and placed on fast triggers.

Beta testers learned quickly that turning off any of the network or security related services cause unintended consequences.

If you need better performance, visit the Advanced Tools page accessed by clicking your WEI score link at Computer>Properties. It will tell you at the top if you need to edit Graphics effects of sliding, fading, dragging intact, etc. to help with performance. Next Generate A System health Report which will clue you to weaknesses in hardware.

If you have a factory bloatware install, you can clean it up using these tips: HP laptop has used up all four primary partitions

Tweaking beyond normal system settings will almost always come back to bite you in Windows 7. This isn't XP or early Vista. This is the most lean, lightweight, perfectly optimized Windows yet.

Hello Duelz, and welcome to SevenForums.

First off, could you please update your system specs so we know what components you have. That will help us to give you recommendations.

Honestly though, Win 7 is pretty well optimized right out of the box. I've had to do very little for it to run well on most systems, including those with little memory or a slow processor.

What I would do is...

1 - Make sure the only programs that run on startup are ones you need. I use iTunes, but I don't have any of the iTunes or QuickTime start up programs running. Until I need to use those programs, there is no need for them to run. However, I make sure my sound card control panel and Logitech keyboard programs are running at startup since I use both of those as needed. Your the only one who make a decision on what need to run and what doesn't at startup.

2 - Defragment your hard disks (except for SSD drives). As programs and files get added and removed, gaps open up on the disk and then when new files/programs are added, they're added in the first open spots first. That causes fragmentation and that means it take more effort to find all the bits. Now, hard drives today are fast, but on slower systems with low memory or on older hard drives that could be an issue. I would defragment every couple of weeks or find a program that will do so when your system is idle.

SSD Drive are different. Think of an SSD drive as a huge thumbnail drive - all the memory is on chips. There is no need to defragment an SSD since its near instant access to any portion of the drive. However, the limitaiton is that if a portion of a sector is used the drive controller will not open up that sector to be reused until the entire sector is empty. If you have lots of smaller files, you may not see a sector reused that may result in uneven use of the memory chips and may wear them out. I would occasionally consolidate free space so that those sectors get used more often. That helps to keep the use of the chips somewhat even and slows down the eventual death of the flash memory.

3 - I would honestly not touch any of the services unless you absolutely need to. For instance, since I use IMO a better anti-virus/malware program than Defender, I disable its services so there is no conflict. I would not be concerned about losing memory or speed due to services. I would look more at possible conflicts like I mentioned above.

Hope these help....


T

thnx every1... i have an intel pentium 3.00Ghz n 1 gig ram... its so crap i know... i just reactivated all the services coz my pc was acting funny... but nw the speed sucks thnx anywei...

duelz, i dont know whether you are of the scientific temperament but if you are convinced the pc is faster with some services disabled, then the way to go about it is to disable ONE service at a time and WATCH how the pc behaves. And keep copious records.

Is this a factory install or did you clean install? How old is it?

Have you made other tweaks to Windows 7 besides turning off Services. Can you list the services you turned off and have now turned back on?

Do you have other performance issues?

Windows 7 can run fine on a Pentium 4 with 1gb. However you might have hardware issues on an older machine with memory or HD. Here are some basic troubleshooting steps you can work through after you resolve the Services if you continue having slowness or hangs: Computer lags every couple seconds