Solved Disabling Windows 7 Services

[Corazon]

Oh, I believe you. I'm just saying that disabling unused services just because they're unused does nothing whatsoever.

And, my friend, you were exaggerating when you said 100+ services.

 

[FastBoot]

Heh heh, yeah you're right. I just counted the services not being used which came to 120 something. I think my other system is running 65+ services out of the box, so I've canned about 45 services or so. Still love Win7, it's the best they've done so far.

 

[gregrocker]

Nice to see one of these threads again now that they're so much more civil.

A year or two ago there was still a loud collision between the two points of view.

 

[pincushion]

Couldn't agree more severedsolo. Personally I'm more like FastBoot, I enjoy tweaking and will go to great lengths to squeeze every drop of performance out of my computer. That said, I don't touch anything until I absolutely know for sure what its purpose is - which means I end up on Google and Wikipedia a lot. It's a fun way of learning and teaching myself some new tricks too.

The problem with so many other users is that they blindly follow recommendations and tips they pick up somewhere without knowing what they're really doing. It's partially the fault of users who won't educate themselves first and are too quick to trust shady (or simply outdated) sources, and partially the fault of those who spread half-baked advice without in-depth explanations on the Internet to begin with.

I think this is the issue, getting reliable information before tweaking anything, understanding the implications and having the means of reversing any changes made. And Greg my system never has BSODs merely hiccups from the very many pieces of software I have to maintain like everyone else. I think if you can trim your basic memory useage then that means more is available for other processes so I do disable some services though not to the extent of FastBoot. Also disabling many of the Event Logs although perhaps not necessary must have some impact - I can't really see why so many are enabled by default when they are just logging mundane information.

 

[gregrocker]

This is faulty thinking. You want to USE your memory, not preserve it. Any not being used is wasted.

What you don't want to do is peg your RAM, by having enough to begin with.

 

[pincushion]

This is faulty thinking. You want to USE your memory, not preserve it. Any not being used is wasted.

What you don't want to do is peg your RAM, by having enough to begin with.

I think what you mean is use it for the things you want it to be used for - not the things that are just hangers-on. I'm afraid my system is maxed out at 4Gb, runs happily though and I'm quite content with Windows 7 but I'll continue to trim where I can to make my system as I want it - and have more space for the programs I choose to run.

 

[gregrocker]

A better approach is to get a clean boot so nothing is running without your knowledge. Uncheck everything in msconfig>Startup and >Services (after hiding MS services) except your AV. Check back after reboots and periodically that nothing writes itself back in or turn it off in its Program prefs or Uninstall.

 

[Layback Bear]

Of course a person can do what they want with their computer. My concern is that a new person will try doing this and make a door stop out of their computer. To those new people I suggest leaving your services alone. Some things on a computer should only be done with the proper knowledge.

 

[FastBoot]

Totally agree. Which is exactly why I wrote in my initial post (twice) that I don't recommend turning off all the services that I did. I also called this system my 'suicide' system to make it clear. I researched each service I flipped off and its relation to another, so I know which one (or more) to snap on if I need to (did you know there are a least 5 services needed for restores and 6 for images?)

My goal wasn't really performance, that was a nice side effect. I wanted to see if a Win7 system could run properly without all the icing and without relying on computer dogma.

 

[Layback Bear]

Yes I did understand what you were doing, testing and learning. That a good thing but probably wouldn't be for a new person in the computer world. It's kind of like turning off the fire department in your town or city. When you need them they are there. You don't want to turn off the fire department because you don't need them now because when you do need them they so no way you turned me off.

 

[FerchogtX]

Well... in my personal oppinion, I use to change some services state, but generally I leave most of them in manual, I only disable a few ones (TrkWks, WU, WSrch...) but many of them are already tweaked since MS did a good job on fixing resouce usage issues from Vista. BUT here comes my point: if you DON'T KNOW what you are doing, I suggest NOT to mess with your services, and if you do, ALWAYS do a registry backup for that certain key that contains services configurations so if you get in troble you can easily restore defaults, that's what I always do, even if I have more than 5 years tweking this kind of stuff from Windows 2000 to 7.

For starndard users disabling extra startup programs from msconfig should suffice, if you like gaming, GameBooster or TuneUp Utilities are your friends, they can temporarily disable unnecesary services so you can use all your available resorces for your games, buut even me, that barely plays some PC games, need them.

If you need a reccomendation, first learn how windows (every version that is NT based) handles services and what they do, so you can ensure you don't break your system, as I said, I just disable some services, but generally you don't need to mess with them, my reasons of disabling WU is simple BTW: It annoys me that my bandwith is in use every time WU looks for updates (Even if BITS does its job on lowering bandwith usage...) and Wsearch... I always organize my files, so I always know where they are and where to find, for me Wsearch is useless, but for most people they are IMPORTANT services and I would recommend NOT disabling them unless you know what you are doing.

Amost forgot, if you ever think on disabling Windows Firewall because you have a 3rd party program DONT EVER DO IT!!!!! unless you want prblems with networking profiles and its setting not being saved, detected and used. Same goes for all related services in this category like AuthIP & IKE and Base Filtering Engine, they are NEEDED by Windows Firewall and overall Windows 7, otherwise your security wll be seriously lowered.

Just my oppinion

See ya!!

 

[logicearth]

if you like gaming, GameBooster or TuneUp Utilities

Those do absolutely nothing. They do not help one bit. What they try to fix was never the problem on Windows 7. If they cannot help my crap of a computer, they will not help one with a much beefier machine.

 

[gregrocker]

Actually tweaking utilities do something we see here regularly: mess up Win7, which needs absolutely no tweaking to give full performance as it is already the leanest OS ever.

If you need a boost upgrade your processor, add RAM or an SSD, run a clean boot, get a Perfect Reinstall.

 

[pincushion]

A better approach is to get a clean boot so nothing is running without your knowledge. Uncheck everything in msconfig>Startup and >Services (after hiding MS services) except your AV. Check back after reboots and periodically that nothing writes itself back in or turn it off in its Program prefs or Uninstall.

This is something I can't fault and probably accounts for most of the slowdowns that people see after they install new software or hardware-related software. Apart from msconfig Norton also has a startup manager and HijackThis can illuminate many services added but not necessary.

I do agree with the general concensus here though that if you are not sure what you are doing whilst tweaking whether it be services or other issues then leave it alone.

 

[FastBoot]

Uh oh, all you guys were right, my system is crippled - help!

Heh heh, gotcha - no it ain't!

In the interests of absolute honesty though, I performed a detailed review and should post that one of my services is set to manual that I overlooked previously: Software Protection. This service essentially keeps Win7 running and authentic, otherwise it would invalidate my Win7 O/S. Below is the revised services that are enabled. Still only 20 services which is mighty fine.

I've updated my original post as I don't want someone to deactivate Win7 if they should decide not to read this thread further. And I reiterate, these settings are not recommended for the average Win7 user.

• COM+ Event System
• DCOM Service Process launcher
• DHCP
• DNS
• Group Policy Client
• Multimedia Class Scheduler
• Network Store Interface
• Plug and Play
• Power
• RPC
• RPC Endpoint Mapper
• Security Accounts Manager
• Software Protection (Manual)
• Superfetch
• System Event Notif.
• User Profile Service
• Windows Audio
• Windows Audio Endpoint Builder
• Windows Driver Foundation
• Windows Mgmt Inst. Service.