WindowsXP - optimisations for better performance..

[BugMeister]

there's a few listed here that may prove useful..
http://www.optimizingpc.com/optimize/wi ... vices.html

- the idea being to strip back non-essential services..

- it might be wise to keep a note of the changes you make,
- in case you want to revert to an earlier setting..

[slice]

I'll second that, killing services works just as well in Vista. the 2 pdf's found here http://www.tweakguides.com/TGTC.html go quite indepth on how to optimise your OS and for those who use Vista who find theyre always running out of memory it also discusses how to turn of superfetch to free up memory

ooh first post as well.. been browsing round here since the first X came out

[frymaster]

it also discusses how to turn of superfetch to free up memory

this is my problem with tweak sites; they aren't as authoritative as they think and are full of mistakes. Superfetch does not waste memory; rather it fills up unused memory with a best-guess of what the OS thinks you're going to load. If you load something else instead, it simply discards its bad guesses.

[paulms1980]

also them free bootable XP cd iso's aint free as advertised lol
if i modify the servies is it possible 2 have say a X3 user login in xp and it will have its own services settings that will not affect the main login?

[slice]

also them free bootable XP cd iso's aint free as advertised lol
if i modify the servies is it possible 2 have say a X3 user login in xp and it will have its own services settings that will not affect the main login?

as far as im aware most if not all windows services are machine wide once set to disabled theyre disabled for all accounts

i use a little app called game booster to stop the services when i play games http://www.iobit.com/gamebooster.html

its litteraly just 1 click to disable the services and tasks and one to restore them and being as the services are just disabled they will restart next time you reboot your pc if you forget to click the button

its still in beta but ive not had any issues with it yet, all it does is close any un-necessary services running on xp or vista and kills most things running in your task tray. it will also kill your antivirus and software filewall if you use one so be careful

[g04tn4d0]

A service is simply a utility program that runs in the background, usually run under the local machine account. They either help out another program or they make some sort of network or local feature possible in the operating system. They are not magical nor is it considered a hack to turn them off. They are configurable for a reason. As a security engineer, one of the basic steps I take when reducing the attack surface of a Windows machine is disabling unneeded services.

Now, on that note, nearly all the services that run in the background of a Windows XP machine are of little impact to system performance. You can free up some memory by disabling them, but it's not going to provide a night and day difference in performance. The system will definitely seem to be more responsive, though. Small framerate hitches may also be resolved. Benefits will vary from PC to PC for obvious reasons, but the benefits will usually be minor.

Windows Vista may be another story simply because a few of its services actually contribute to drive thrashing, which can appear to slow a system down from a certain aspect. While the seemingly continual hard drive access during boot may appear extremely counterproductive, it does eventually stop on its own. It also happens less and less over time as Windows Vista SuperFetch builds a profile based on what it believes are your current working habits. This makes Windows Vista "seem" much more responsive once the prefetching is done, as many of the usual program requests are partially cached. The drawback is that a lot of memory is committed to this process and if you decide to do something else, the memory must be dumped prior to fulfilling the new request. Another drawback is that the PC isn't very responsive when it is cold booted as it's busy trying to stuff a few gigs of data into RAM.

So, the moral of the story? Don't be afraid to turn off those services. There's several on both Windows XP and Windows Vista that you can safely disable permanently if you're just a home user. In fact, if you don't do any file or printer sharing, there's a few more on top of that which will usually make a sizable difference in responsiveness as well as increase overall system security while connected to the Internet. However, I can't recommend using a 3rd party program that disables all the services just to play a game. That can dramatically lower the security of a Windows operating system. Most system compromises are invisible to the person logged in interactively. Keep that in mind.