What services are safe to disable?

[gregrocker]

Simply not necessary, in the end.

After five years in the trenches with Win7 here where most of the repair, install and Best Practice protocols were developed, we would know if there were Service trims that are worthwhile. In the earliest days of Beta we were testing this and quickly learned it's unnecessary.

Previously in XP and Vista many of us had practiced the Black Viper edits to claw back performance. But Win7 became the Black Viper when they developed fast triggers so that almost all Services not always needed at boot can be set to Manual.

With today's modern hardware power it's simply not necessary to trim such a featherlight OS.

That said, on older hardware with less than 4gb RAM I still run 32 bit and edit Visual Effects of hogs like fading, sliding, dragging intact and selection rectangle even those are not noticeable. See Bloatware tutorial in my sig pic below

Hope this helps. I've written it out probably a hundred times in past years and its never been disputed. But other views are always welcome

 

[wanchoo]

Please have a look at http://www.blackviper.com/ to decide which services to stop but take care. Not really necessary to tinker with the Swrvices.

Hi all,

Can anyone give me any pointers on what services are safe to disable in Windows 7 Ultimate edition..... Would be grateful for your feed back

Thanks

Sam

I am interested in doing this as well.

I know there are slight security improvements that you can benefit from and say your running a computer at bare minimum requirements, that slight improvement in performance could make more of a difference compared to computer that most (or some) have.

It's been quite some time since this topic was bought up but i am interested in this as well so i'm bringin' it BACK!!!



I agree completely. Experimenting and learning on your own is the best way to learn. Hence the saying "If you want to learn to swim, jump in.)

Honestly I may be in that category you mentioned of "No idea how the system works yet venture in to that arena" but i am on forums to learn and gain knowledge.

I will make my own little statement about how i went about disabling services at the end... after i'm done replying to my "Quotes" that i did to try and help bring the thread back

Then the first thing I would do with this knowledge (if it still applies... the thread is old and more than a few updates have been released) would be to shrink whatever is needed, perform whatever else, then do it disable the service.. I wont deny that this could be an inconvenience if you are constantly managing HDD's.

For defragging i use Defraggler by Piriform.

Leave services alone. In lots of testing, I was almost unable to prove any benefit whatsoever to shutting down services and in most cases the system performed worse with services disabled.

It takes trial and error sometimes. For the sake of advancing our knowledge, what type of test did you use to try and weight the benefits of shutting down services? I'd ask what services you shut down but i doubt you'd remember.

^ The trouble is 2 fold.

#1). Mostly performance won't improve...so it's a bit of work with little to no reward
#2). You "could" disable something today that you won't discover to be a problem for a few months when installing some other software or using a function within a piece of software that you don't often use. And you may not remember that 1 off service that you previously decided to no longer run.

There are ways to reverse this. Check out my input on the situation at the end.

My input on this:

I am here to learn. If i am wrong here, or any post i make, correct me and give me a good explanation of why i'm wrong.

I type msconfig from the start menu. Go to Services. And disable the services i feel like i do not need. I have used the following sites to help me determine which ones i need and don't need. I'm sure they are not perfect but they seem likes decent guides:

7tutorials.com

and

techrepublic.com

I chose these sites because they tell you what each service does and when you should disable them. It would be nice if we could use this thread to add to the list of "consequences/benefits" of disabling services that are not needed.

Now... As far as "Jacking things up by messing with the Services within Windows" goes... There is ALWAYS system restore and it is not hard at ALL to use.

Just do it before you disable any services.

If I am wrong in any of this let me know.

 

[LMiller7]

The dangers of disabling services have been well said in this thread. Unfortunately the message doesn't always get through. You are in uncharted territory when you start to disable system services. There is no guide anywhere that can tell you for certain what will happen. Microsoft has never published a complete list of what each service does. Many do more than what is documented.

Of course you can reverse these changes with system restore, if it is not too late. But what often happens is that things are working fine, then you install some new application, device, or make a system change. Then you find things just don't work as expected. Error messages make no mention of services and there seems little reason to suspect this might be the problem. Later you make the connection, but not till after a great deal of troubleshooting. I speak from personal experience.

There is another matter that needs to be emphasized. It is widely believed that setting a service startup to Manual is a safe alternative to disabling it. The idea being that if the service is needed it will be started. A service set to manual startup CAN be started if necessary. But there is nothing in Microsoft documentation that states this will actually happen. In fact, except for service that are set to manual startup by default, they normally will not. In most cases the Windows component or application that relies on the service will simply fail with no attempt to start the service. Most likely there will be no error message mentioning a service. Again, I speak from experience.

Since the benefits of disabling system services are so questionable why take the chance?

 

[exitPr0gram]

Please have a look at http://www.blackviper.com/ to decide which services to stop but take care. Not really necessary to tinker with the Swrvices.

I am interested in doing this as well.

I know there are slight security improvements that you can benefit from and say your running a computer at bare minimum requirements, that slight improvement in performance could make more of a difference compared to computer that most (or some) have.

It's been quite some time since this topic was bought up but i am interested in this as well so i'm bringin' it BACK!!!



I agree completely. Experimenting and learning on your own is the best way to learn. Hence the saying "If you want to learn to swim, jump in.)

Honestly I may be in that category you mentioned of "No idea how the system works yet venture in to that arena" but i am on forums to learn and gain knowledge.

I will make my own little statement about how i went about disabling services at the end... after i'm done replying to my "Quotes" that i did to try and help bring the thread back

Then the first thing I would do with this knowledge (if it still applies... the thread is old and more than a few updates have been released) would be to shrink whatever is needed, perform whatever else, then do it disable the service.. I wont deny that this could be an inconvenience if you are constantly managing HDD's.

For defragging i use Defraggler by Piriform.



It takes trial and error sometimes. For the sake of advancing our knowledge, what type of test did you use to try and weight the benefits of shutting down services? I'd ask what services you shut down but i doubt you'd remember.

^ The trouble is 2 fold.

#1). Mostly performance won't improve...so it's a bit of work with little to no reward
#2). You "could" disable something today that you won't discover to be a problem for a few months when installing some other software or using a function within a piece of software that you don't often use. And you may not remember that 1 off service that you previously decided to no longer run.

There are ways to reverse this. Check out my input on the situation at the end.

My input on this:

I am here to learn. If i am wrong here, or any post i make, correct me and give me a good explanation of why i'm wrong.

I type msconfig from the start menu. Go to Services. And disable the services i feel like i do not need. I have used the following sites to help me determine which ones i need and don't need. I'm sure they are not perfect but they seem likes decent guides:

7tutorials.com

and

techrepublic.com

I chose these sites because they tell you what each service does and when you should disable them. It would be nice if we could use this thread to add to the list of "consequences/benefits" of disabling services that are not needed.

Now... As far as "Jacking things up by messing with the Services within Windows" goes... There is ALWAYS system restore and it is not hard at ALL to use.

Just do it before you disable any services.

If I am wrong in any of this let me know.

I am on my way to work at the moment butwhen I get home I will list the services that I had disabled

With the services disabled and waiting a while after installing the other things that I need to install after performing a fresh installation of Windows 7 x64 ultimate (such as Aviator browser, Antivirus, Comodo firewall, etc.) I'll keep you guys posted on whether or not I run into issues.

I am aware that this will not apply for everybody because they will not be installing the same things that I am but it will still give us an idea of what we can and cannot do safely. A system restore is obviously the whole point of this if your trying to be safe, especially since there is no official documentation, its kind of up to us to figure this out.

Also, a certain level of experience comes in to play when trying to modify the services which is always up to the user to determine whether or not he knows enough or at least how to fix it if something goes wrong.

As I stated previously, this is all for the sake of learning. Not refusing to look in to, or research, things because "it might cause problems if you don't do it right" and I do not mean for that to come out in a sarcastic or condescending way.



Thanks,

Exit

 

[Layback Bear]

When it comes to Windows 7 Services where did the idea come from that Black Viper is god all know all on Windows 7 Services.
Only Microsoft really knows what all their serves inter connect with and exactly how they do that.

If one wants to experiment; well it's your computer. Have at it. I would suggest freshening up on clean installs by reading the tutorials on this forum.

 

[exitPr0gram]

Please have a look at http://www.blackviper.com/ to decide which services to stop but take care. Not really necessary to tinker with the Swrvices.

Then the first thing I would do with this knowledge (if it still applies... the thread is old and more than a few updates have been released) would be to shrink whatever is needed, perform whatever else, then do it disable the service.. I wont deny that this could be an inconvenience if you are constantly managing HDD's.

For defragging i use Defraggler by Piriform.



It takes trial and error sometimes. For the sake of advancing our knowledge, what type of test did you use to try and weight the benefits of shutting down services? I'd ask what services you shut down but i doubt you'd remember.



There are ways to reverse this. Check out my input on the situation at the end.

My input on this:

I am here to learn. If i am wrong here, or any post i make, correct me and give me a good explanation of why i'm wrong.

I type msconfig from the start menu. Go to Services. And disable the services i feel like i do not need. I have used the following sites to help me determine which ones i need and don't need. I'm sure they are not perfect but they seem likes decent guides:

7tutorials.com

and

techrepublic.com

I chose these sites because they tell you what each service does and when you should disable them. It would be nice if we could use this thread to add to the list of "consequences/benefits" of disabling services that are not needed.

Now... As far as "Jacking things up by messing with the Services within Windows" goes... There is ALWAYS system restore and it is not hard at ALL to use.

Just do it before you disable any services.

If I am wrong in any of this let me know.

I am on my way to work at the moment butwhen I get home I will list the services that I had disabled

With the services disabled and waiting a while after installing the other things that I need to install after performing a fresh installation of Windows 7 x64 ultimate (such as Aviator browser, Antivirus, Comodo firewall, etc.) I'll keep you guys posted on whether or not I run into issues.

I am aware that this will not apply for everybody because they will not be installing the same things that I am but it will still give us an idea of what we can and cannot do safely. A system restore is obviously the whole point of this if your trying to be safe, especially since there is no official documentation, its kind of up to us to figure this out.

Also, a certain level of experience comes in to play when trying to modify the services which is always up to the user to determine whether or not he knows enough or at least how to fix it if something goes wrong.

As I stated previously, this is all for the sake of learning. Not refusing to look in to, or research, things because "it might cause problems if you don't do it right" and I do not mean for that to come out in a sarcastic or condescending way.



Thanks,

Exit

What do you mean by "freshening up" on clean installs? Just install, activate run Windows update then get your Antivirus etc. Pretty self explanatory. I've done it this way for years without issues so if missing something i am Definitely all ears.

 

[UsernameIssues]

In more than one place, Microsoft suggests that "Unnecessary services should be disabled".

Doing so is such a difficult task that MS has a Security Configuration Wizard for server operating systems.

There are many W7 users that wish to extend the concept of security hardening via disabling services to non server operating systems... but this is extremely hard to do. You could actually end up lessening your security. The W7 images deployed where I work do indeed have some services disabled via GPO, but you would not believe the time and effort that goes into testing each business related app via Virtual Machines to arrive at the service configurations.

I'm mentioning the security angle because exitPr0gram is in the thread

 

[gregrocker]

Not MS Services. The "unnecessary" ones can be viewed and deselected after hiding all MS Services on the msconfig Services tab, all except your AV and any sync. Most are on Startup tab but some are deemed Services

 

[exitPr0gram]

Not MS Services. The "unnecessary" ones can be viewed and deselected after hiding all MS Services on the msconfig Services tab, all except your AV and any sync. Most are on Startup tab but some are deemed Services

I agree. Msconfig> Services Tab> High All Microsoft Services, is actually the best way to disable stuff. But still, knowledge (or common sense morel like it) of what is safe to disable and is not is still required.

I've done this for quite some time and have experienced no issues.

I think i did one time during a remote session or something but i just started the service and it worked. No biggie at all, whatsoever. You just have to know whats not working, and what service is disabled that will affect it.

 

[Layback Bear]

Did I not high light Windows 7 Services in my post #25?
I did that for a reason. To let all who reads the post have no doubt Windows 7 Services is what I was referring to.

@exitPr0gram
Not everybody that thinkers with Windows 7 Services is as well versed as you on a Clean Install. That is why I recommend the Tutorials. Greg has probably helped thousands of people install Windows 7 which indicates that everybody don't have the knowledge to install a Windows 7. That is exactly why many come here for help and get help installing Windows 7.

People from all over the world read our post. They all have various levels of knowledge of Windows 7.

Trained people like many on this forum have a knowledge base to do things to their system that I wouldn't advise the masses to do.
John and Shawn probable do adjustments and settings to the operating system for this Forum I would not suggest the average user to try.

 

[exitPr0gram]

Did I not high light Windows 7 Services in my post #25?
I did that for a reason. To let all who reads the post have no doubt Windows 7 Services is what I was referring to.

@exitPr0gram
Not everybody that thinkers with Windows 7 Services is as well versed as you on a Clean Install. That is why I recommend the Tutorials. Greg has probably helped thousands of people install Windows 7 which indicates that everybody don't have the knowledge to install a Windows 7. That is exactly why many come here for help and get help installing Windows 7.

People from all over the world read our post. They all have various levels of knowledge of Windows 7.

Trained people like many on this forum have a knowledge base to do things to their system that I wouldn't advise the masses to do.
John and Shawn probable do adjustments and settings to the operating system for this Forum I would not suggest the average user to try.

I understand that user's will have different levels of knowledge. It is good that you link to the tutorials. So we don't need to go back and forth on that one.

... And if the reader is actually reading the posts then they will know that extreme caution should be taken. I can modify my first post and put a disclaimer or something.

I am not trying to "Modify" my Windows 7 unless there is a benefit to security or performance. I could care less about how Windows 7 looks/acts. I actually don't even use Windows 7 Aero... I use Windows 7 Basic, LOL. If i had a better graphics card that'd probably change.

Good talk!

 

[prithvitheprime]

Does shutting down Windows services affects normal operation; i even thought about stopping Bluetooth, media centre, and most of the vaio services but not the Windows services. Just need some more answers which Windows services we can stop to make the performance very quicker.

 

[gregrocker]

Does shutting down Windows services affects normal operation; i even thought about stopping Bluetooth, media centre, and most of the vaio services but not the Windows services. Just need some more answers which Windows services we can stop to make the performance very quicker.

Again and ad nauseum, NO MS services should be disabled. You will gain absolutely nothing except troubles.

Vaio services are another matter since like any other factory OEM are all freeloaders on Win7 which interfere with better versions built into the OS and hence can all be unchecked in msconfig. A more thorough way to mitigate them is in the Bloatware tutorial in my signature pic below. But to have the best install of all which benefits from everything we've learned here for five years do the Reinstall tutorial also in siggy pic below.

 

[UsernameIssues]

In more than one place, Microsoft suggests that "Unnecessary services should be disabled".

Doing so is such a difficult task that MS has a Security Configuration Wizard for server operating systems.

There are many W7 users that wish to extend the concept of security hardening via disabling services to non server operating systems... but this is extremely hard to do. You could actually end up lessening your security. The W7 images deployed where I work do indeed have some services disabled via GPO, but you would not believe the time and effort that goes into testing each business related app via Virtual Machines to arrive at the service configurations.

I'm mentioning the security angle because exitPr0gram is in the thread

Not MS Services. The "unnecessary" ones can be viewed and deselected after hiding all MS Services on the msconfig Services tab, all except your AV and any sync. Most are on Startup tab but some are deemed Services

The MS documentation that I read concerning making Windows more secure left me with the impression that MS's Security Configuration Wizard disabled MS Services based on the server's role. Watching videos of users configuring MS's Security Configuration Wizard for Windows Server 2008 r2 reinforced that impression. Since I cannot test MS's Security Configuration Wizard first hand, I'll take your word for it that MS does not do that.

I might also be wrong about there being a correlation between Windows 2008 r2 core services and W7 core services. There might be no value in learning from MS's hardening of that server OS.


If a user has Java installed, but does not need/use Java, then they incur Java related security risks for no good reason. If a Windows 7 user does not use the Themes service, why should they leave the Themes service running?

Since the Windows Theme service is a known attack vector for W7 (MS13-071), there does seem to be some security related value in disabling that service if it is not being used. While this particular attack could not be carried out via drive by installation (as far as MS knows), those who keep the Windows Theme service running are accepting the risk that such a different drive by install/attack will strike them. It is fine to run that small risk as long as the user is benefiting from running the Theme service.

A bug was found with Windows 7 Aero (MS10-043). Those that don't use themes probably were not at risk from that bug. Disabling the W7 Themes service probably had no security implications for this bug.


I've already stated that it is extremely difficult to determine which services are safe to disable for a given set of applications. It is certainly possible to lower the security of a computer by turning off the wrong service(s). And each set of operating system patches makes for more uncertainty about the interactions between services. I am aware that users disabling services makes our volunteer jobs harder. Am I wrong to think that a disabled service is less likely to be attacked by malicious objects?

 

[exitPr0gram]

In more than one place, Microsoft suggests that "Unnecessary services should be disabled".

Doing so is such a difficult task that MS has a Security Configuration Wizard for server operating systems.

There are many W7 users that wish to extend the concept of security hardening via disabling services to non server operating systems... but this is extremely hard to do. You could actually end up lessening your security. The W7 images deployed where I work do indeed have some services disabled via GPO, but you would not believe the time and effort that goes into testing each business related app via Virtual Machines to arrive at the service configurations.

I'm mentioning the security angle because exitPr0gram is in the thread

Not MS Services. The "unnecessary" ones can be viewed and deselected after hiding all MS Services on the msconfig Services tab, all except your AV and any sync. Most are on Startup tab but some are deemed Services

The MS documentation that I read concerning making Windows more secure left me with the impression that MS's Security Configuration Wizard disabled MS Services based on the server's role. Watching videos of users configuring MS's Security Configuration Wizard for Windows Server 2008 r2 reinforced that impression. Since I cannot test MS's Security Configuration Wizard first hand, I'll take your word for it that MS does not do that.

I might also be wrong about there being a correlation between Windows 2008 r2 core services and W7 core services. There might be no value in learning from MS's hardening of that server OS.


If a user has Java installed, but does not need/use Java, then they incur Java related security risks for no good reason. If a Windows 7 user does not use the Themes service, why should they leave the Themes service running?

Since the Windows Theme service is a known attack vector for W7 (MS13-071), there does seem to be some security related value in disabling that service if it is not being used. While this particular attack could not be carried out via drive by installation (as far as MS knows), those who keep the Windows Theme service running are accepting the risk that such a different drive by install/attack will strike them. It is fine to run that small risk as long as the user is benefiting from running the Theme service.

A bug was found with Windows 7 Aero (MS10-043). Those that don't use themes probably were not at risk from that bug. Disabling the W7 Themes service probably had no security implications for this bug.


I've already stated that it is extremely difficult to determine which services are safe to disable for a given set of applications. It is certainly possible to lower the security of a computer by turning off the wrong service(s). And each set of operating system patches makes for more uncertainty about the interactions between services. I am aware that users disabling services makes our volunteer jobs harder. Am I wrong to think that a disabled service is less likely to be attacked by malicious objects?

In more than one place, Microsoft suggests that "Unnecessary services should be disabled".

Doing so is such a difficult task that MS has a Security Configuration Wizard for server operating systems.

There are many W7 users that wish to extend the concept of security hardening via disabling services to non server operating systems... but this is extremely hard to do. You could actually end up lessening your security. The W7 images deployed where I work do indeed have some services disabled via GPO, but you would not believe the time and effort that goes into testing each business related app via Virtual Machines to arrive at the service configurations.

I'm mentioning the security angle because exitPr0gram is in the thread

Not MS Services. The "unnecessary" ones can be viewed and deselected after hiding all MS Services on the msconfig Services tab, all except your AV and any sync. Most are on Startup tab but some are deemed Services

The MS documentation that I read concerning making Windows more secure left me with the impression that MS's Security Configuration Wizard disabled MS Services based on the server's role. Watching videos of users configuring MS's Security Configuration Wizard for Windows Server 2008 r2 reinforced that impression. Since I cannot test MS's Security Configuration Wizard first hand, I'll take your word for it that MS does not do that.

I might also be wrong about there being a correlation between Windows 2008 r2 core services and W7 core services. There might be no value in learning from MS's hardening of that server OS.


If a user has Java installed, but does not need/use Java, then they incur Java related security risks for no good reason. If a Windows 7 user does not use the Themes service, why should they leave the Themes service running?

Since the Windows Theme service is a known attack vector for W7 (MS13-071), there does seem to be some security related value in disabling that service if it is not being used. While this particular attack could not be carried out via drive by installation (as far as MS knows), those who keep the Windows Theme service running are accepting the risk that such a different drive by install/attack will strike them. It is fine to run that small risk as long as the user is benefiting from running the Theme service.

A bug was found with Windows 7 Aero (MS10-043). Those that don't use themes probably were not at risk from that bug. Disabling the W7 Themes service probably had no security implications for this bug.


I've already stated that it is extremely difficult to determine which services are safe to disable for a given set of applications. It is certainly possible to lower the security of a computer by turning off the wrong service(s). And each set of operating system patches makes for more uncertainty about the interactions between services. I am aware that users disabling services makes our volunteer jobs harder. Am I wrong to think that a disabled service is less likely to be attacked by malicious objects?

Thanks for keeping on the topic of Security. Thats the main thing i'm worried about. Prevention is key, not solutions to fixing an infection

When corporate companies image machines, one of the FIRST things that they do is disable services that are not needed by that user (Along with policies, etc). Of course, they adjust which services are disabled based off of the employees job description. But be advised... That these network admin's at these companies KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING and mistakes, even by them, are still somewhat common. Usually when bringing on new software or upgrading software.

We are just trying to figure out which ones WE can disable without experiencing problems, and if we mess something up, how to quickly recover from it.

For instance:

Do you use a fax machine via your computer? Then why would you need that service enabled? That service, specifically, is pretty self explanatory as to whether or not we we should disable it.

 

[exitPr0gram]

Home Computer Service Disabling

Does shutting down Windows services affects normal operation; i even thought about stopping Bluetooth, media centre, and most of the vaio services but not the Windows services. Just need some more answers which Windows services we can stop to make the performance very quicker.

Again and ad nauseum, NO MS services should be disabled. You will gain absolutely nothing except troubles.

Vaio services are another matter since like any other factory OEM are all freeloaders on Win7 which interfere with better versions built into the OS and hence can all be unchecked in msconfig. A more thorough way to mitigate them is in the Bloatware tutorial in my signature pic below. But to have the best install of all which benefits from everything we've learned here for five years do the Reinstall tutorial also in siggy pic below.

Does shutting down Windows services affects normal operation; i even thought about stopping Bluetooth, media centre, and most of the vaio services but not the Windows services. Just need some more answers which Windows services we can stop to make the performance very quicker.

YES. It does affect the "normal" operation of Windows. Anything you have, or will have, installed may need something you've disabled.

Simply not necessary, in the end.

After five years in the trenches with Win7 here where most of the repair, install and Best Practice protocols were developed, we would know if there were Service trims that are worthwhile. In the earliest days of Beta we were testing this and quickly learned it's unnecessary.

Previously in XP and Vista many of us had practiced the Black Viper edits to claw back performance. But Win7 became the Black Viper when they developed fast triggers so that almost all Services not always needed at boot can be set to Manual.

With today's modern hardware power it's simply not necessary to trim such a featherlight OS.

That said, on older hardware with less than 4gb RAM I still run 32 bit and edit Visual Effects of hogs like fading, sliding, dragging intact and selection rectangle even those are not noticeable. See Bloatware tutorial in my sig pic below

Hope this helps. I've written it out probably a hundred times in past years and its never been disputed. But other views are always welcome

I think its more than just trimming a "Featherlight OS" for performance reasons... there are secrurity reasons in disabling Microsoft Services as well.

When it comes to Windows 7 Services where did the idea come from that Black Viper is god all know all on Windows 7 Services.
Only Microsoft really knows what all their serves inter connect with and exactly how they do that.

If one wants to experiment; well it's your computer. Have at it. I would suggest freshening up on clean installs by reading the tutorials on this forum.

Dont know what Black Viper is to be honest. Maybe i will give it a shot and check it out and see what i think about it.

In more than one place, Microsoft suggests that "Unnecessary services should be disabled".

Doing so is such a difficult task that MS has a Security Configuration Wizard for server operating systems.

There are many W7 users that wish to extend the concept of security hardening via disabling services to non server operating systems... but this is extremely hard to do. You could actually end up lessening your security. The W7 images deployed where I work do indeed have some services disabled via GPO, but you would not believe the time and effort that goes into testing each business related app via Virtual Machines to arrive at the service configurations.

I'm mentioning the security angle because exitPr0gram is in the thread

The fact that Microsoft themselves say that disabling services proves that, if you dont need it or wont want to use it, you can benefit from disabling it.

Yup you're right. i linked those websites because they were very explanatory and made me feel safe about disabling them. And yea, companies definitely "Customize" the images they put on each machine they distribute for an employee to use but i doubt those people would be coming to this thread for answers lol

I would say that this is more for "Home PC" configuration as far as Disabling Windows Services goes.


As a test, I have disabled the following services. Honestly, i had to disabled them, reboot, i checked msconfig again, and had to disable 1 or 2 that didn't want to disable, then reboot yet again. If i remember correctly I rebooted once more and ALL the of the following services were disabled.

NOTE: Since i've disabled those services i have used installed and used the following programs with no difficulty: MalwareBytes, Starcraft2, IMGBurn, PowerISO, an alarm clock program i like, and Peerblock.


My Currently Disabled Microsoft Services (From msconfig):

BitLocker Drive Encryption (I do not use it)

Certificate Propagation

Encrypting File System (EFS)

Fax

Homegroup Provider (I do not use Homegroup.)

Microsoft iSCSI Initiator Service

Netlogon

Network Access Protection Agent

Offline Files

Parental Controls

Printer Spooler (I don't have a printer or use PDF Converts, etc.)

Remote Access Auto Connection Manager

Remote Access Aconnection Manager

Remote Desktop Configureation

Remote Desktop Services

Remote Desktop Services UserMode Port Redirector


Remote Procedure Call (RPC) Locator

Remote Registry

Secondary Logon ( I only have one user created for this pc. Dont disable this if you have more than one.)

Smart Card

Smart Card

Removal Policy

Tablet PC Input Service ( I dont use tablets at all.A nice *SS Android phone is all i need

Windows Connect Now - Config Registrar

Windows Defender (I use 3rd party. Much better IMHO)

Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service (I use VLC)



As stated previously these are the websites that i used to decide what to disabled:



Which Windows Services Are Safe to Disable & When?

And

10+ Windows 7 services you may not need - TechRepublic.

 

[UsernameIssues]

I was serious when I said that I'll take gregrocker's word that MS does not say to disable MS services on W7 - even for security's sake. I trust his experience with W7 and his close contact with MS representatives.

It is debatable what is meant by unnecessary in the MS quotes that I made. MS might not be suggesting disabling their services in W7 in those server OS documents. In 2003, (for Windows 2000 and XP?), MS published tables of services that could be disabled. And that publication was definitely for desktop operating systems... not just servers. I did not find a recent document as clear as the 2003 document. See the tables near the bottom of this PDF. Vista and W7 are different - so don't use those tables for them.


Black Viper is just another website that discusses various services configurations. He offers (or used to) reg files that you can merge to automatically setup a computer to one of his configurations. Black Viper has his followers and his haters. He is mostly hated here - or so it seems.

When I first joined this forum, there was a very heated thread on this topic. Some of those that were advocates of disabling MS services for the sake of security left the forum. This is does not seem to be the best forum for these types of discussions. The fear is that people wanting to learn about disabling MS services, will read this thread and try it. This thread (despite its copious warnings) does not contain (in an organized fashion) all of the info that a user needs to know before venturing into this dangerous territory.

I have probably upset several forum members just by talking to you about this topic as much as I have.

One of the reasons why I took this conversation as far as I did was:
I would like to have a very conservative list of MS services that can be disabled. This forum (with its vast wealth of knowledge and its staunch opposition to disabling MS services) should be the best place to get a technical reason for not disabling the Themes service. Since that discussion did not occur and since no one responded to your Fax service inquiry, I'll conclude that we should look elsewhere for meaningful dialog on this "hardening the OS" topic.

Or, this forum might not be the best place for this topic because very few forum members experiment with disabling MS services. Thus, there might not be a wealth of knowledge on this specific topic. And/Or, those members that do experiment with disabling MS services remain silent on the topic so as to not rock the proverbial boat. Much like those that do not use an antivirus product generally keep such info to themselves.

 

[Layback Bear]

The forum does have this tutorial that shows default Windows 7 Services. I could be helpful to some at times needed.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/236709-services-restore-default-services-windows-7-a.html

 

[gregrocker]

Exactly what do you hope to achieve by disabling these Services? There is no performance benefit whatsoever so are you just doing it to play?

What is the reason that anyone would want to disable Services on a featherlight OS that has no substantial overhead like XP or Vista did?

On any modern hardware disabling MS Services is foolhardy because it achieves nothing and causes unintended consequences. As I said we experimented with this during beta and found no useful Win7 MS Service edits except in the case of making it smaller for netbook use.

I'm afraid a MS quote about Servers for IT Pro's to mass customize company computers for Security variances might be confusing a consumer discussion. It seems to be giving ammunition to utterly unnecessary and harmful edits like the list proposed above which is a minefield of unintended consequences. But I understand the point being made about some Security edits being useful in an IT environment.

The Black Viper was very popular and used by many of us to trim XP and Vista resource hogging, but was pretty much put out of business by Win7 which set all all unnecessary Services to Manual using new Fast Triggers we followed here in the developers blog. So Win7 never needed the Black Viper and in fact became the Black Viper since it is as lean as an OS can be while still being visually elegant.

So again, exactly what do you hope to accomplish?

 

[UsernameIssues]

Exactly what do you hope to achieve by disabling these Services? There is no performance benefit whatsoever so are you just doing it to play?

I stated my goal...
...it has nothing to do with performance
...it has to do with security.

On any modern hardware disabling Services is foolhardy because it achieves nothing and causes unintended consequences.As I said we experimented with this during beta and found no useful Win7 edits except in the case of making it smaller for netbook use....

Again, you are thinking about performance.

I don't know why a MS quote about Servers for IT Pro's to mass customize company computers for Security variances would be brought into a consumer discussion. It is misleading and giving amunition to utterly unnecessary and harmful edits like the list proposed above which is a minefield of unintended consequences....

I already explained that too:

In more than one place, Microsoft suggests that "Unnecessary services should be disabled".

Doing so is such a difficult task that MS has a Security Configuration Wizard for server operating systems.

There are many W7 users that wish to extend the concept of security hardening via disabling services to non server operating systems... but this is extremely hard to do. You could actually end up lessening your security. The W7 images deployed where I work do indeed have some services disabled via GPO, but you would not believe the time and effort that goes into testing each business related app via Virtual Machines to arrive at the service configurations.

I'm mentioning the security angle because exitPr0gram is in the thread

If you are willing, please address the two questions below:

If a user has Java installed, but does not need/use Java, then they incur Java related security risks for no good reason. If a Windows 7 user does not use the Themes service, why should they leave the Themes service running?

Since the Windows Theme service is a known attack vector for Windows 7 (MS13-071), there does seem to be some security related value in disabling that service if it is not being used. While this particular attack could not be carried out via drive by installation (as far as MS knows), those who keep the Windows Theme service running are accepting the risk that such a different drive by install/attack will strike them. It is fine to run that small risk as long as the user is benefiting from running the Theme service.

A bug was found with Windows 7 Aero (MS10-043). Those that don't use themes probably were not at risk from that bug. Disabling the Windows 7 Themes service probably had no security implications for this bug.


I've already stated that it is extremely difficult to determine which services are safe to disable for a given set of applications. It is certainly possible to lower the security of a computer by turning off the wrong service(s). And each set of operating system patches makes for more uncertainty about the interactions between services. I am aware that users disabling services makes our volunteer jobs harder. Am I wrong to think that a disabled service is less likely to be attacked by malicious objects?