Solved Disabling Windows 7 Services

[DaGooN]

I use to be a mad tweaker :shock: but i think windows 7 does a good job with the services unlike vista ect. but there is a APP that is based on Black-vipers settings ect and you can just 1 click apply.. also make a restore point before you try them. for me i used it as there is still some stuff i don't need to run, IE a printer and such things.
It has 3 settings.
1. Safe
2. Tweaked <--- Me
3. Advanced or BareBones

Tweak Windows 7 Services with SMART Utility : HomePage | The Windows Club

handy little app to have.

 

[gregrocker]

Black Viper was almost a Bible for low-resource machines running XP and Vista, but Win7 engineers solved the issue of too many services set to Auto by developing Manual fast-triggers.

So there is no gain to be had by disabling services at all, and plenty of unexpected consequences when dependencies are disrupted and later needed for Networking, Security, etc.

As far as Bonjour, I would uninstall it as Itunes can do without it and it can be as much of a pain as MucAfee, AVG or AOL and it's idiot son player.

The Black Viper served his purpose, but now Win7 has become the Black Viper.

 

[CyberCriminal]

I did some research on Windows services and I've disabled the following services...

Adaptive Brightness
My PC doesn't have light sensors and I don't need this service.

Application Management
If you don't deploy software through Group Policy

Background Intelligent Transfer Service
Uses idle bandwidth to update windows, MSN explorer.

BitLocker Drive Encryption Service
I'm sure, I don't need this.

Bluetooth Support Service
No BT.

BranchCache
My PC is not connected to any network.

Certificate Propagation
For Smart Cards.

Computer Browser
Distributed Link Tracking Client
Function Discovery Provider Host
Function Discovery Resource Publication
HomeGroup Listener
HomeGroup Provider
Netlogon
Network Access Protection Agent
Offline Files
Server
Not required for a standalone system. Just a waste of resources.

ICS
IP Helper
My PC doesn't use IPv6.

Parental Controls
For Kids.

Print Spooler
No Print Spooler = No Printing.

Remote Registry
Gives remote users a way to edit your registry. TuneUp Utilities recommends to disable this one.

Tablet PC Input Service
I don't own a Tablet PC.

WebClient
No reason to run.

Windows Defender
Windows Firewall
I've third party antivirus.

Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service
Why sharing our WMP Library on Network?

Windows Search
Windows Update
Not Useful.

 

[kevi3434]

1. Open Start Menu
2. Search for Services
3. Click on Services (The one with the gears icon)
4. Locate the service you wish to switch off/on

 

[karlsnooks]

cyber,

I wish you well. You still have much to learn. I've spoken my last on this matter.

 

[logicearth]

I did some research on Windows services and I've disabled the following services...

Alot of those services were on manaul, disabling gained nothing.
You pretty much wasted your time.

 

[CyberCriminal]

1. Open Start Menu
2. Search for Services
3. Click on Services (The one with the gears icon)
4. Locate the service you wish to switch off/on

Thanks for the help!

cyber,

I wish you well. You still have much to learn. I've spoken my last on this matter.

It's been 3 days since I disabled these services. We'll see.

I did some research on Windows services and I've disabled the following services...

Alot of those services were on manaul, disabling gained nothing.

Yea, not much difference. Thanks. Repped you all!

 

[Layback Bear]

Please note. Many of those serveries would only work if you requested them to work. I have a pea brain but my guess is I can't out smart Windows 7. If you keep the list of services you changed you can always go back to the list if needed.

 

[maxseven]

If you keep the list of services you changed you can always go back to the list if needed.

But a week or a month from now when something isn't quite working right one can spend hours head-scratching & troubleshooting and then "Oh, I disabled this-or-that; geez didn't know it would affect THUSANDSUCH!!"

 

[DeaconFrost]

The problem is, by setting them to disabled, they cannot run if needed. If you had left them alone (which is what everyone was advising from the beginning), they won't use any resources, yet if needed for something unique, they are able to run. It can't be overstated that you just wasted time setting your system up to potentially be unstable.

 

[FastBoot]

For my first post I thought I would add in my experience here. I don't particularly recommend these settings, but I've only had benefits so far.

Now, I only use this system for a few things, web browsing, e-mail, Office Suite stuff (2010), editing avi movies and music production/playback. I was looking for a 'silent stripper' system, but enough to run a decent multimedia environment. I don't print anything or play PC games either.

I use an older system, two actually. They are both 7 year old HP DX2000 mini-towers. I got them for $25 each and added 2GB of RAM and a lot of HD storage, four 1.5TB drives for my movie & music files. The boot-up drives are typical 250GB WD drives, nothing special in either. They are both configured identically except for their services, I'm running 32-bit WIN7 Ultimate w/ SP1.

So I decided to use one as a suicide tester to see how much I could get away with disabling stuff and still have it usable. I never trusted all those overly cryptic service descriptions warning of impending doom if such and such services are disabled. Right now the tester is running a mere 19 (now 20, see below in green) services and they are all set to auto - been like that for almost a year. My previous WIN2000 box had only 9 services enabled, ran it like that for 11 years. On my Win7 system they are:

• 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.

All other services are set to Disabled not Manual. If you're counting, that's over 120 services that are disabled. If you don't see it listed above, it's disabled. I also disabled the Task Scheduler via a registry tweak. I find the TS is hooked into everything that Windows needs to phone home constantly. No more Microsoft stealth contact (according to my packet sniffer).

How's it run you ask? So far, just fine. It will be a year at the beginning of November 2011 and i don't see any issues. I can still do all the things I need to do. In fact, I'm in the process of doing the same thing with my main computer because of its success. I'm a manual type of guy, so if I need updates I have to do them manually. But based on what I do, I find new updates sometimes screw up my movie editing software, so I'll just stick w/ SP1 for now. If I need a restore point created, manual. Defrag? - manual, etc.. I've basically silenced my computer to do exactly what I want and sped it up as a side benefit.

What surprised me the most was boot up time, 33 seconds from power on to desktop (as long as I don't have my USB backup drive plugged in). Keep in mind this is a 7 year old computer, w/ a single 3Gz processor and only 2GB of RAM plus a 512MB video card. Everything else hardware is ancient on it. But it's still very snappy, I don't have any complaints yet. I also thought turning off Windows search and indexing service would be a hassle looking for files, but searches are very quick regardless - so off it stays.

Imagine doing this on a new system. I have to confess, Win7 is highly configurable and pretty fast - especially after tweaking it like I have. MS did a decent job on this O/S, very happy with it.

So there you have it, sorry for the long first post but I thought it was necessary to explain as much as possible to warn as well as inform. As stated, I wouldn't recommend these settings for people who may do more complicated things than I do or are used to Windows doing everything for them automatically. But for me and for everything I do, it works very well even after close to a year.

 

[pincushion]

What do you use in case you have problems with the OS - any imaging software? I think too many on this forum seem to have the 'don't alter anything, you'll probably die!' and that Windows 7 is perfect as it stands. No defrag, no controlling pagefile, no altering services etc. - of course many of us out there in the wilderness do not believe this and tweak to our hearts content AND manage to have useable systems that for some reason aren't always falling over or riddled with malware. Perhaps it is all down to the user.

 

[gregrocker]

I regularly get a 20 second boot with all Services set to defaults.

The genius of Win7 is that all Services not absolutely needed at boot are set on fast triggers. Why try to outsmart something this smart to begin with? You'll likely outsmart yourself unless you want to do everything "manually" with a computer. :huh:

Beta testers learned the hard way that there is no performance clawback to be had at all a la XP and early Vista by tweaking Services. Win7 has become the Black Viper - the ultimate tribute.

On low RAM computers I still edit Visual Effects to eliminate sliding, animation, dragging intact and other hogs, but never Aero which gives elegance at a bargain. Yet some prefer the Dodge Dart XP methods to Win 7's Lexus. We even see those who default to steel gray file cabinet Win2000 graphics by unchecking Use Visual Styles.

For those who can't resist compound tweaking, be sure to bookmark this: Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) Posting Instructions - Windows 7 Forums. There's about half a day's wait while other tweakers are being helped.

Enjoy Windows 7!

 

[FastBoot]

Yeah, I have to agree with that completely. That's one of the reasons for my post, that it can be done for long-term w/ no consequences. There are too many silent owners doing things like this that may be intimidated by the 'doom and gloom' crowd.

Years ago I felt the same. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to logon, or my performance would suffer, or 3 months down the road something strange would happen and troubleshooting it would be a nightmare. But nothing has happened so far, same with my previous WIN2000 system which was similarly tweaked and which I used for a decade.

As for imaging software, I use the Win7 built-in imaging - I take a snapshot every month or so. I can't use the system restore function because it's switched off, though I may turn it back on - it's pretty handy.

But the whole point of having two cheap computers was for me to have an inexpensive O/S backup I could just swap in if I have an issue I didn't foresee (like hardware). Perhaps I could Ghost over the main HD to a spare HD as a third alternative.

 

[severedsolo]

There are too many silent owners doing things like this that may be intimidated by the 'doom and gloom' crowd.

Well as a self confessed member of the "doom and gloom crowd" I will tell you this. IMO, Windows 7 IS perfectly fine pretty much at default. It doesn't start a service unless its needed anyway so it's not hogging resources, and it's not affecting your machine.

However, as I always say, it's your machine, do what you want with it. My own personal reason for recommending not messing with it is quite simple. When it goes wrong, invariably people come here. We don't have a gnats chance in hell of helping you if you have gone around disabling services nilly willy and then cant remember what your done. (I'm not saying this is you, but generally thats what we see here).

In those cases the answer is always the same "just format and start again, we have no way of knowing what you've done". So I try and save the headache and just say don't do it in the first place.

 

[Corazon]

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.

 

[Layback Bear]

My thinking also

I regularly get a 20 second boot with all Services set to defaults.

The genius of Win7 is that all Services not absolutely needed at boot are set on fast triggers. Why try to outsmart something this smart to begin with? You'll likely outsmart yourself unless you want to do everything "manually" with a computer. :huh:



Beta testers learned the hard way that there is no performance clawback to be had at all a la XP and early Vista by tweaking Services. Win7 has become the Black Viper - the ultimate tribute.

On low RAM computers I still edit Visual Effects to eliminate sliding, animation, dragging intact and other hogs, but never Aero which gives elegance at a bargain. Yet some prefer the Dodge Dart XP methods to Win 7's Lexus. We even see those who default to steel gray file cabinet Win2000 graphics by unchecking Use Visual Styles.

For those who can't resist compound tweaking, be sure to bookmark this: Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) Posting Instructions - Windows 7 Forums. There's about half a day's wait while other tweakers are being helped.

Enjoy Windows 7!

Exactly!! These are My thoughts also.
Services are there to help you not hurt you.
It's a shame it won't let me rep gregrooker

 

[FastBoot]

I don't agree...

Running it this way for a year and my previous WIN2000 box for much longer, has convinced me that some of these services, while noble in nature, just aren't needed.

I find Windows, like cars, can be lightened & made to perform better in a cumulative fashion. Installing that carbon fiber hood does nothing to increase street performance. But switching to a lighter spare tire, lighter wheels, lighter brakes, a dry battery, lighter performance seats, etc. has a big effect on the total weight of the car - so it performs better w/o having to add more power.

I do agree, those 100 plus services I've done away with are negligible for performance - individually. But cumulatively, they are constantly snapping on at different times doing stuff I don't need done. None of that stuff is needed by me, and if i do need it I'll turn it on, use it and shut it the heck off. Of course, knowing what they do is half the fun. Remember, I'm using a 7 year old box with old technology and it still boots in just half a minute.

Using the car analogy again, do I really need that golf club set in the trunk? If I'm on a whim and want to golf on my way back from work it would be useful to cart them along. I wouldn't notice them much if I have a powerful sports sedan, but I would if I drove a Corolla w/ only 90 horsepower. So, I'll leave those clubs at home and pick them up when I need them. They're still there, I'm just not lugging them around wasting gas, space and resources.

 

[Corazon]

I dunno, now you're kinda exaggerating...Of course nobody needs 100+ services and there aren't even that many running on a fresh Win7 install. Plus the point has been made that unused services, even if running, just don't do anything.

Every second, your CPU spends a few nanoseconds looking at these services and decides they have nothing to do. Then it moves on.

So you shave off those 5 or so nanoseconds by disabling a bunch of services. There are 1,000,000,000 nanoseconds in one second so I really don't buy the argument that it makes any kind of noticeable difference at all.

To further your own analogy, that's like taking 5g off a 1,000 ton truck and saying "look, it's lighter." :sarc:

 

[FastBoot]

Well, I'm not saying this old box is a missile. There's nothing to exaggerate, I'm just stating what I've done.

Buy it or not, the concrete proof is in my performance. My other box isn't slow, but it's pokey and its boot-up time is over two minutes. Rendering movies takes longer and when I listen to music while I'm working, it occasionally cuts the sound. I don't have that problem with my stripper and they're the same box.

So I'm actually getting a measurable performance difference, no denying it.