Optimizing Services In Win2000/XP

[The Edge]

I just gained an extra 45mb of RAM by using these simple steps.
Hope it works for others


Step1:
- Goto start/Run and type compmgmt.msc
- Click on the services tab.
- Set ALL your services to *manual* setting.

Step2:
- Reboot computer and wait for windows XP to load. XP will boot pretty slowly, since it has to turn on each service seperately. Use your computer for a bit, doing what you normally do during a computing session. This will allow any other services to activate (such as DHCP or other services that didn't load during the boot process).

Step3:
- Go back to the list of services, and see which ones are Started.
- Change the services that are marked as Started, to *Automatic*
- This way windows will automatically load all of the services that you normally use, and the ones that you don't use will stay unloaded.

Some "unecessary" services might still load but I think this is a good optimization for a normal user.
Note: If you set windows audio service to manual you will not have any sound!!!
Give it a try Win2000/XP users.......



Edge

[Enchanter]

XP will boot pretty slowly

I don't know if I will like the idea of it, given that WinXP (and especially Win2K) boots considerably and comparatively slowly to Win9x.

Besides, I don't think it matters that much when you have oodles of RAM (say, 512 MB) and given the fact that the WinNT OS has a pretty good memory management system.

Of course, I have set a few (not all) services to manual or disabled, but only those that I know I don't need or those that have been said to be unnecessary.

Just my 2 cents worth of thought.

[The Edge]

Just boots slow as the services are loading.
Once set to Automatic, it's as fast as lightening. WinXp does boot faster the Win9x anyways. It prefetches boot files unlike Win98/Me. Having say 256mb of RAM, you will still boot the same speed if you had 512mb.

Edge

[Enchanter]

Right. Can't say WinXP boots faster than Win9x though (I take into account the time taken from start-up to login up to when the harddrive is no longer churning from loading up services).

Anyway, I appreciate the tips given here. I will certainly consider trying it out. Thanks.

[ShuMO]

*shudders*

I guess if your extremely experienced, this might be fun, but I would hardly think this is a good thing to do. There are more than 30 services that are run on fresh install. Of those, 8 are specifically set to NOT autostart on call. ie; if an application requests a disabled service, the service wont startup. In addition to that, some applications dont startup in the proper order and wont get hooked into there dependency services.

May I suggest for light reading:

http://www.blkviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm

In addition, as there are services related to Anti-viral, Firewall, Indexing, ODBC, and other 'behind the scenes' tools its quite easy actually to hose yourself. One service for example is the Symantec Antivirus service. As I understand it, it 'hides' its name so that worms dont easily disable it. Anyways... I do agree that you can get some megs back, for sure. I mean, who really needs the X10 interface turned on! But I think that besides, or at least in addition too, that you review a few Memory tools to look at culprit services and there memory uses. Winfax comes to mind. All those little tools down by your clock use ram. And many of them dont run as services but are started up from the "hklm...\run" or simply in the 'startup' folder. Myself I'm more concerned with Cycle stealers... background apps that take cycle time off my machine during enc/dec work. Ram is cheap. New processors aren't. 5% of the CPU used to monitor your printer ink (I kid you not for the Lexmark tools!) is 5% longer encode time.