Services Configuration

[JamesJ]

Was wondering if anyone can point me somewhere where I might find a list of services that can be safely disabled and is printable and the printout is readable. I'm aware of a table one can print out for this at Black Viper's web site but the printout is very unreadable. There are no lines seperating any of the services on the printout ands the printout has no alternate back ground color which would help.
Preferably, I would like to find a program that does this. Like saving the default sevices configuration and allow me, with help form the program, to disable to services I don't want.

Any help will be appreciated,
James

 

[severedsolo]

Disabling Services on Windows 7 is NOT recommended. Most of the problems I see on here, specifically regarding networking happen because people have followed that Black Viper list.

Windows 7 is NOT XP, there is no need to "optimise" "tweak" or mess with it in any way. It won't start services until they are needed anyway, they certainly don't take up resources if they aren't activated.

 

[Barman58]

I doubt that you will find much available other than the Black Viper site as basically this sort of tweaking has very little use on windows 7.

Unless you have very specific needs, letting the system handle the defaults will be better than trying to manually change things.

Windows 7 manages memory and services differently to an OS like XP and is normally a lot better at it

 

[pparks1]

You have heard it from two other members, but I will follow suit and say the same thing;

I don't recommend disabling services in Windows 7. Any performance gains are pretty much immeasurable, and the risk of performance loss seems to outweigh any gains.

 

[JamesJ]

Wow, what pleasent replies!
I've had Viper's service configuration on this system for nearly a year and I haven't seen any problems with one exeption. I had disabled Human Interface and my Mulit-MKedia keyboard wasn't working poperly. I have noticed an improvment with my startup and the speed at which programs load.
I'm very particular with what runs and starts on my system. Every time I turn around some windows service is starting and it slows me up at times.
I guess I'm lucky memory is cheap.
Anyway, I was just looking for something to make it easier for me. I'll just use my old print-out when I configure them again.

Thanks,
James

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Hello mate, in a different vein, have a look through these tutorials linked below.

How to Free Up and Recover Hard Drive Space

How to Speed Up / Optimize the Performance of Windows 7

​

 

[JamesJ]

Disk space isn't a problem. I have 1 TB and I'm using 40 GB of it. But, I found some interesting ideas in the other link.
It really isn't as much as improving the performance with the services configuration. It's more of not knowing what runs when I don't know it. For instance, I have an event sound for the "Open Program" event. You wouldn't believe how many times this gets triggered at start up. I only have 2 programs starting in the System Config/Startup tab.
As long as I'm on the subject I have a related question. I have a 3rd party system optimizing software which cleans junk files and the like and has many nice features. It also has a feature to disable start up programs, the ones run from the registry in the ....Run key. It showed my 2 programs but there were a bunch of other Windows programs starting which my optimization sofware refered to as "Advanced Startup Items." There were 4 Briefcase files running and about 15 others which I can't think of at this time. Any way I might get information an these programs??

James

 

[severedsolo]

They are probably necessary Windows processes. You can probably check what they are with Autoruns Autoruns for Windows

On the subject of system optimizing software, again, it really isn't needed. You're doing your system more harm than good in the long run.

 

[JamesJ]

So removing junk files with the 3rd party software is harming my system? Deleting cookies is harming my system. Windows seems to leave alot of garbage behind. Again I've used 3rd party optimizing software for a long time.
But then again I've probably been lucky.

Thanks for the link,
James

 

[pparks1]

I'm very particular with what runs and starts on my system. Every time I turn around some windows service is starting and it slows me up at times.

And I've probably been fortunate to run on pretty nice systems where they plow though most things and I don't notice any of these things slowing me down. I dabbled with tweaks and shutting down services when I first started playing with Windows 7, but a stopwatch actually proved to me that my performance was going downhill rather than improving. I set it back to defaults and it was back to being faster. I generally go for performance myself, I don't really care much what is actually running in the background as long as it's stable and quick.

 

[JamesJ]

Again, it's not always performance that I'm concerned about. I have no idea what this software or services do. Does it open me up to hacking?? Like synching services. I have no need for these. Everything is on my local computer so why would I need something like say Briefcase to run?? By tweaking my services I at least have piece of mind that I have some control over my computer. Im not saying these services, by default, should be disabled. It's much easier to disable the ones you don't want or need. Seem like now we're at the mercy of the operating system whether we like it or not.
I do have real time anti-virus software and anti-malware which I use only to scan with. I have yet to run into serious problem by the way I "polish" my system. If you all want to let unknown programs run, start and stop that's fine, but that's not acceptable to me.

 

[DeaconFrost]

Every time I turn around some windows service is starting and it slows me up at times.

You are mistaken if you think the services are slowing you down. It can't be said enough, but you should NOT be messing around with services.

The "disabling services" myth was debunked 7-8 years ago, and it's been revisisted and re-debunked each time a new Windows OS comes out. Windows 7, more so than any previous version, does not need to be tweaked to perform best. if you think your system is slow, spend your efforts on solving that issue, than chasing down services that you think are the cause.

I can't believe it still needs to be written, but there's a very good reason why BlackViper is called QuackViper on enthusiast forums.

 

[JamesJ]

If you read my last post it's not all performance. I have no idea what these services do. How do I know these services don't access the internet, contact other web sites or networks? As far as I'm concerned some services are nothing more than holes to allow hackers to slip through. Unless you can convicne me other wise I'll continue the tweak my services. As long as I know which ones I don't require, their out-a-here.

James

 

[DeaconFrost]

I'm not out to convince anyone, because that's been well established for years now. The community is well beyond that by now.

If you are concerned about services accessing the internet or hackers "slipping through" you need to turn your attention to routers and firewalls, not services. Leave them alone. There's no reason to "tweak" services, especially not in the name of security.

I'm not discouraging you from caring about security. But what you are doing it basically like changing the wallpaper in your living room in an attempt to keep thieves out. Those default services aren't going to make you less secure. Windows 7 wouldn't be getting the praise from the security community if it had holes by default.

 

[JamesJ]

I will admit, you've got me thinking a bit here. In fairness to you, it must make things a bit difficult to trouble-shoot a problem when one has tweaked services. At he very least it adds more that can account for the problems one might be having with his or her system. As and example, I clouldn't get the volume controls to work on my new multi-media keyboard. I messed around posting for about a week when I finnally called Microsoft. The first thing he told me to do was check the status of the Human Interface Device Access service. Sure enough it was disabled (which I disabled) and upon enabling it the keyboard volume controls started working fine.

But, should I be concerned with 3rd party software creating services? I tried a Google product and then uninstalled it but it left behind Update services even after the uninstall. Should I be concerned, that everytime I install a program, don't like it and uninstall it, about 3rd part software leaving behind enabled services??

James

 

[DeaconFrost]

Third party services can open up a whole new discussion. My comments above were about default Windows services that come as part of the OS. Messing with those won't yield performance or security, but can render your system unusable. That line of thinking doesn't pertain to third-party services. Those possibly could be disabled to shut off features of an app or suite. At worst, that app won't function properly, but your system will be fine. You can do far less damage. I remember an iTunes-related service...Bonjour maybe, that I would disable because it was running tasks in the background to search for other iTunes libraries on my company network. No reason for that.

However, this also leads the direction to the fact that if the app was removed, the service should have been removed as well. I have never used it, but people seem to love Revo Uninstaller to do some clean-up after uninstalling programs. In my opinion, if a service was left behind by an uninstalled app, and you were sure it wasn't part of anything still left behind...it should be safe to disable without any worries. But that would make me wonder what else that particular app left behind.

 

[Barman58]

By all means be concerned with 3rd party Services and especially start-up entries, I, and I would imagine others who advise against tweaking Windows services, would definitely check after any install as to what changes have been made to the system and if these changes are needed.

EG. When you install Acrobat reader, do you really need a process running all the time to make the program load fractionally quicker, (and if you use the program enough to make that viable then load the whole program at start-up )

I have used Autoruns for years to check this type of system hi-jack and first off disabling them and once proved superfluous, removing them.

   Note

One other important consideration is if you do decide that a service is not required then you should set it to manual and not disabled - this way if six months down the line a change to the system sees the service required it will manually start the service for you

 

[DeaconFrost]

By all means be concerned with 3rd party Services and especially start-up entries, I, and I would imagine others who advise against tweaking Windows services, would definitely check after any install as to what changes have been made to the system and if these changes are needed.

Yes, absolutely, and I'm quoting this to reiterate my comment above. When I caution against tweaking or changing services at all....I was stictly speaking about Windows service. As in, the default ones that are part of Windows 7 and it's built-in applications. Anything installed by the user is subject to a different set of rules and treatment altogether.

 

[JamesJ]

I do have Revo Uninstaller but didn't use it to uninstall the Google product.
I use Acrobat reader and yes it has items that starts at startup and I believe it has services that it sneaks in.
You all have convinced me that it isn't worth it to disable Windows Services. It's one less thing I need to do if I do a clean install of Windows. Once or twice a year I like to do a clean install of Windows. No special reason why, probably just to do it.