MSConfig - which services are necessary to run and which can be off

In troubleshooting a setup for slowness, I noticed that there was a lot of
seemingly random disk activity when no functions were going.


Then I examined MSCONFIG for running programs.


Is MSCONFIG the right place to look for all running programs?


Looking at the MSCONFIG Services tab I see many entries.

I turned all the MSCONFIG Services off then rebooted and the disk activity calmed down-- only an occasional blink on the indicator.


Is it possible that there is a malware in Services? I've never encountered such a thing.


Or can the Services be adjusted for minimum necessary activity?


I'm trying to find this slowdown problem on an older board -- MSI 880gm with a 3 core
Athlon.

Good advice. I wasn't doing much during this observation.
I'll do the suggested action and see if the disk activity stays down.

Thanks for the reply. More research to do.
I've done what you said and hid the Microsoft services. Only one remains which is something about
Mozilla Maintenance for auto update. There's supposed to be a way to eliminate it with an option
in Firefox but I'd just as soon have it gone and am working on removal rather than just
unchecking a box.

Now that you have disabled all of the non-Microsoft services except for Mozilla Maintenance, has the computer performance issue been resolved? If so, then one or more of the non-Microsoft services was the culprit.

Anak said:

It should be listed in programs and features just right click on it and then click on uninstall.

If this machine has thunderbird installed you'll need to find that one to, I've never used thunderbird but there may be two entries in programs and features.

Yes, it's gone now. For some reason I didn't see it with RevoUninstaller first time through.
Revo showed no leftover things to detele. A check of MSCONFIG showed that it was removed.


No T-bird on the target MSI setup but I'll check for it on the main email machine on this
home network

loninappleton said:

Yes, it's gone now. For some reason I didn't see it with RevoUninstaller first time through.
Revo showed no leftover things to detele. A check of MSCONFIG showed that it was removed.


No T-bird on the target MSI setup but I'll check for it on the main email machine on this
home network

When I did look for Thunderbird in Services after hiding Microsoft Services as explained above on my email machineit showed a bunch of other items installed which may have been 'assumed' at one time
or another. Example is something to do with Acronis which I do not use and do not see
any longer in Programs and Features (if it was there.) Hijack this has some entries too.
I unticked all of these non Microsoft items as a starting point to clean up all my machines

on the homenet.




Perhaps Black Viper has answers to all this. I will examine that when I can.