disabling services to boost performance

H

H3d Case

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 11, 2005
Messages
232
i have the windows media center pc and ive been looking at some guides with a list of services you can disable except they are for windows xp. does it matter if i use media center?
 
i tried posting a thread in "operating systems" about disabling services faster, but i just got flamed by people saying that disabling them does nothing.. but i know for a fact that my 700 mhz computer with 128 megs of ram needs most of them disabled otherwise it takes forever to accomplish tasks
 
Big Fat Duck said:
i tried posting a thread in "operating systems" about disabling services faster, but i just got flamed by people saying that disabling them does nothing.. but i know for a fact that my 700 mhz computer with 128 megs of ram needs most of them disabled otherwise it takes forever to accomplish tasks
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If you knew, then why ask?

You asked in the OS forum, and you got your answers. If you didn't want the truth, you should have said up front that you wanted to be lied to.
 
H3d Case said:
yes but does it matter if i use a media center pc?
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The only difference is that MCE has added a few new services. Most likely, you'll recognize them from their descriptions.
 
Disabling services is a good thing if you know what your doing. Heck, I think it is a good idea for eveyrone to disable Error Reporting. Honestly what good does such a service like Error Reporting going to do for the average home user?? It is more of a spy gadget as far as I am concerned. No one should be reproting system crash data to Microsoft!
 
Super Mario said:
Disabling services is a good thing if you know what your doing. Heck, I think it is a good idea for eveyrone to disable Error Reporting. Honestly what good does such a service like Error Reporting going to do for the average home user?? It is more of a spy gadget as far as I am concerned. No one should be reproting system crash data to Microsoft!
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All the people who have had issues diagnosed by Ranma_Sao going through their crash logs might beg to differ.
 
From my past experience with disableing services.

1) you dont notice ay performance increase

2) your PC doesnt function properly, I got weird effects sometimes with installing some programs like DiskKeeper! It never installed right until I enabled everything! or you might get help with remote assistance, and the list goes on! Dont touch them you wont notice any difference!
 
I've been disabling my services for a while, and it helps when you don't have much RAM to start with. Each service takes up oh so much RAM (Hell, the print spooler service takes up 5MB, so if you don't have a printer, it's actually just a waste of RAM) that could be going toward something like Battlefield 2 or whatever else you might need it for. I've disabled a lot of services and have never had any problems... It all depends on a users needs. Just don't start disabling services someone else has, you might need them for your firewall and other various applications.
 
Don't even bother with disabling services. With computers today with sufficient amount of RAM there is no need to. If a service is not being used, it will use no CPU time and Windows will reclaim its memory as needed.

Just ignore morons like Blackviper.
 
KoolDrew said:
Don't even bother with disabling services. With computers today with sufficient amount of RAM there is no need to. If a service is not being used, it will use no CPU time and Windows will reclaim its memory as needed.

Just ignore morons like Blackviper.
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How is it going to reclaim memory if it is still running? - IT cant!!!!! cause it is running
 
eeyrjmr said:
How is it going to reclaim memory if it is still running? - IT cant!!!!! cause it is running
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Actually, it can and it does. It gets paged out to the hard drive. We've had thread after thread after thread on this (and most of them get locked), but the evidenced consensus has always been that widespread service tweaking nets no meaningful performance gains past startup.

Here's one of the better summaries; I'm not going to waste further time dredging up the others. Search "service performance" in this forum and you'll find plenty of stuff.
 
lomn75 said:
Actually, it can and it does. It gets paged out to the hard drive. We've had thread after thread after thread on this (and most of them get locked), but the evidenced consensus has always been that widespread service tweaking nets no meaningful performance gains past startup.

Here's one of the better summaries; I'm not going to waste further time dredging up the others. Search "service performance" in this forum and you'll find plenty of stuff.
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j00 = sp34k teh truth!!!
 
lomn75 said:
Actually, it can and it does. It gets paged out to the hard drive. We've had thread after thread after thread on this (and most of them get locked), but the evidenced consensus has always been that widespread service tweaking nets no meaningful performance gains past startup.

Here's one of the better summaries; I'm not going to waste further time dredging up the others. Search "service performance" in this forum and you'll find plenty of stuff.
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I never said disabling services good.

What I was questioning was a running program cannot be paged out cause it will request CPU time and thus must be in RAM
 
Disabling services for performance is a joke. I could see if you didn't want like Windows Security to start up but to disable services for performance is stupid.
 
Super Mario said:
Disabling services is a good thing if you know what your doing. Heck, I think it is a good idea for eveyrone to disable Error Reporting. Honestly what good does such a service like Error Reporting going to do for the average home user?? It is more of a spy gadget as far as I am concerned. No one should be reproting system crash data to Microsoft!
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I apologize Super Mario, but this is the stupidest quote I have ever linked. How do you think Microsoft fixes all those bugs you see fixed in Service packs? Usually from watson reports. How do you think MS was able to point the finger at the video card companies for causing over half the crashes in all of windows? Through watson reporting. I have debugged 100's of watson reports, if not thousands, and it has lead to some neat bugs that I could never ever cause as a tester, since it required Some App, Some magic, Some new CPU I didn't even have when testing Windows XP in 2000.

As to the service argument, I've said all I'm going to say about it. Use the search function. ;)

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
 
"Disabling services is a good thing if you know what your doing."

I agree with this statement and if people want to waste their time disabling services they won't ever need then let them. Blackviper is not a moron and he provides a valuable service to the community. I appreciate that M$ has all these services available for people that want them, but some don't and need some disabled for their systems to run better. My philosophy is if it doesn't need to run on my computer, then it gets disabled or just doesn't run. I'm keeping Error Reporting disabled on my computer. :D
 
People. Please take your time to read the FAQ.

This issue has been addressed for so long now that all the new people trying to shove their ignorant statements/habits onto us is at most pathetic...

Here's the sum up:

1) Disabling services does nothing to your perfomance, nothing...

2) Services not being used get paged... Once paged they don't use RAM... So disabling ErrorReportingServices for example, not only doesnt help, it actually hinders your computer.

3) Now if security was put onto the discussion, there we could go into a stalemate...

4) BlackViper is the biggest moron/looser/liar there is around the net. His service descriptions are directly copied from Microsoft's description of services... In numerous, and document instances (search function) has his lack of knowledge on service dependancies appeared painfully obvious to all of us...
 
SkaarjMaster said:
"Disabling services is a good thing if you know what your doing."
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If you really knew what you were doing, you wouldnt be disabling anything...

SkaarjMaster said:
I agree with this statement and if people want to waste their time disabling services they won't ever need then let them. Blackviper is not a moron and he provides a valuable service to the community.
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Are we talking about the same person....?
Maybe you should look around a little bit more in the OS forums...

SkaarjMaster said:
I appreciate that M$ has all these services available for people that want them, but some don't and need some disabled for their systems to run better. My philosophy is if it doesn't need to run on my computer, then it gets disabled or just doesn't run. I'm keeping Error Reporting disabled on my computer. :D
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You philosophy isnt wrong.
But most of the Services have dependancies that you need...

And I bet you don't know even half of the dependancies of each service or what service you need running...
 
Everyone has an opinion. I just don't like any service running that I don't need. I just can't believe you guys are trashing Blackviper like that when he provides a valuable service to the community. People can read his site and make up their own minds what they want to do. OK, so this issue has been beaten to death, except for the fact that the majority opinion is narrow-minded and for the masses that don't know anything about computers. Please don't insult me with your "holier than thou" "If you really knew what you were doing, you wouldnt be disabling anything..." attitude. If you can't even acknowledge that disabling some services is a good thing, then really what kind of service are you providing to the community. I know what I'm doing and I choose to disable some services. I'm not even close to the "barebones" services running either, just some that I don't need. I've said my peace. Goodbye.
 
IMHO, the only good reason for disabling services may be for security reasons and not performance.
 
OK, I just read the FAQ thing people referred to and I think Audiochris said it best:

"Good write up. Here's my take on the whole disabling services thing. If it works for you... that's great. Your computer, your business. I personally don't see the advantages. For my everyday use the defaults are just fine."

I agree that security is probably the best reason, but there are others as well. Personally, I like to have control of my computer and this is my way of doing this and it makes me feel better about my computing experience. I don't like much of the automated stuff that has crept into the computing world over the past few years and try to set everything the way I want it. For instance, I have wireless and UPS services both disabled. If and when I need them, then I will enable them. Since the FAQ is about 2.5 months old, let's just all agree to disagree and that would be fine with me. :D
 
2) Services not being used get paged... Once paged they don't use RAM... So disabling ErrorReportingServices for example, not only doesnt help, it actually hinders your computer.
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That is complete BS. So give me one example of how disabling Error Reporting hinder your computer?? That is such a ridiculous statement. Maybe disabling it doesn't help performance much, but did you ever think of the fact that some people don't want spy infested gadgets running? Nothing depends on such a meaningless service expect for sending crash data to Microsoft or someone else. I HATE Error Reporting and it is a service that anyone can safely disable unless they are in the minority few who actually like to submit private crash data from their PC to Microsoft. Not very appealing to many people I assume to being pressured to constantly having their PC talk to MS..

Disabling services strictly for performance gain is not a good idea. But to come off and say that disabling any service is a bad idea if you know what your doing is a completely arrogant and false accusation to blab out at everyone else.
 
Super Mario said:
That is complete BS. So give me one example of how disabling Error Reporting hinder your computer?? That is such a ridiculous statement. Maybe disabling it doesn't help performance much, but did you ever think of the fact that some people don't want spy infested gadgets running? Nothing depends on such a meaningless service expect for sending crash data to Microsoft or someone else. I HATE Error Reporting and it is a service that anyone can safely disable unless they are in the minority few who actually like to submit private crash data from their PC to Microsoft. Not very appealing to many people I assume to being pressured to constantly having their PC talk to MS..
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Because MS wants to spy on you, right?
They don't intend to help or improve their OS... All they want is your .net passport password and a way to hack into your gmail account... :rolleyes:

Super Mario said:
Disabling services strictly for performance gain is not a good idea. But to come off and say that disabling any service is a bad idea if you know what your doing is a completely arrogant and false accusation to blab out at everyone else.
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1) I blabbed it out in response to him disabling for performance. If you got to read my previous post (to the one you are mentioning) you would have seen item 3.

2) The truth hurts...?

3) Says you! :p
 
SkaarjMaster said:
Everyone has an opinion. I just don't like any service running that I don't need. I just can't believe you guys are trashing Blackviper like that when he provides a valuable service to the community. People can read his site and make up their own minds what they want to do. OK, so this issue has been beaten to death, except for the fact that the majority opinion is narrow-minded and for the masses that don't know anything about computers.
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Ok. If the "masses that don't know anything about computers" should stear clear of QuackDiaper and "the few and the proud who know" don't really want to get anywhere near that idiot.

Where does that put you?

SkaarjMaster said:
Please don't insult me with your "holier than thou" "If you really knew what you were doing, you wouldnt be disabling anything..." attitude. If you can't even acknowledge that disabling some services is a good thing, then really what kind of service are you providing to the community. I know what I'm doing and I choose to disable some services. I'm not even close to the "barebones" services running either, just some that I don't need. I've said my peace.
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There are no "barebone" services. At some point or the other dependancies will become a problem on an "service disabled" computer...

Aren't you still using sp1 (from another thread...) ? If you would change to sp2 you would have noticed how much improved service memory handling has become. How few services are set to automatic too...

SkaarjMaster said:
Goodbye.
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SkaarjMaster said:
OK, I just read the FAQ thing people referred to and I think Audiochris said it best:

"Good write up. Here's my take on the whole disabling services thing. If it works for you... that's great. Your computer, your business. I personally don't see the advantages. For my everyday use the defaults are just fine."

I agree that security is probably the best reason, but there are others as well. Personally, I like to have control of my computer and this is my way of doing this and it makes me feel better about my computing experience. I don't like much of the automated stuff that has crept into the computing world over the past few years and try to set everything the way I want it. For instance, I have wireless and UPS services both disabled. If and when I need them, then I will enable them. Since the FAQ is about 2.5 months old, let's just all agree to disagree and that would be fine with me. :D
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Weren't you leaving....?
 
So, how does disabling Error Reporting Service actually hinder a computer's performance? :confused: Can someone please enlighten me with links?
 
Because MS wants to spy on you, right?
They don't intend to help or improve their OS... All they want is your .net passport password and a way to hack into your gmail account...
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Yes, I suspect MS does want to spy on you. They have been caught doing so in the past, and I don't trust them.

Even if they don't want to spy on you, I DO NOT want Error Report submission dialog boxes coming up when ever a program crashes or I encounter a critical system error. I can disable certain services to prevent certain things from coming up that I hate. So disabling services is a good thing to stop your OS from doing things you hate as long as you know what your doing.
 
The whole spy thing is major paranoia. So relax. It's a tool MS uses to determine what breaks things. If you don't want to use it, fine, don't. I'm not going to tell you how to run your system. But calm down about the spy tool stuff. Many don't send those reports and that's their business. Maybe they're afraid it will send info about their pirated Photoshop and somewhere down the line will come back to bite them in the ass (not saying that is your case) but I'm just throwing out guesses here.

Anyway, on the services debate.
This thread will pretty much answer most questions you guys have about it.
For you guys that are like THAT THREAD IS NARROW-MINDED, let me remind you that the OP, O[H]-Zone was very vocal against people who simply stated that disabling services was bad. I hope I'm not putting words in his mouth, and if I misunderstood your position, I apologize. The point is at some point we all finally got past the bickering and found that everyone was basically saying the same thing.

There is a big difference in the benefits of disabling services on home gaming machines and disabling services on critical enterprise servers or workplace desktops. Different needs for different users

Now if you guys want to turn this debate into more argumentive flaming, unfounded trash talking, then we will see these threads closed. We had a good run there where these threads were being discussed in an intelligent manner. I'd like to see that trend continue.
 
SkaarjMaster said:
So, how does disabling Error Reporting Service actually hinder a computer's performance? :confused: Can someone please enlighten me with links?
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It doesn't!! SkaarjMaster was just trying to point out a shortsighed argument that disabling any services is a bad thing. It is NOT if you know what your doing. I disable services to stop Windows from launching something I don't want because I hate it. I don't do it strictly for performance.
 
Super Mario said:
Yes, I suspect MS does want to spy on you. They have been caught doing so in the past, and I don't trust them.

Even if they don't want to spy on you, I DO NOT want Error Report submission dialog boxes coming up when ever a program crashes or I encounter a critical system error. I can disable certain services to prevent certain things from coming up that I hate. So disabling services is a good thing to stop your OS from doing things you hate as long as you know what your doing.
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If you don't trust them then why are you running their operating system? If microsoft really wanted to spy on you then I'm sure they could figure out a way to do it without using the error reporting system.
 
jpmkm said:
If you don't trust them then why are you running their operating system? If microsoft really wanted to spy on you then I'm sure they could figure out a way to do it without using the error reporting system.
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I don't use any MS phone home gadgets including Windows Update. I download all critical security hotfixes from the monthly released security bulletins as individual files and install each one. In the TOS, it indicates that Microsoft can collect information from your PC when using their services that phone home to MS servers. No where in the TOS does it say MS can collect information from your PC without you even knowing it by you just being connected to the Internet and not using any MS phone home gadets. So as long as you esnure all the MS phone home gadgets are completely disabled, I don't think they would legally get away with spying on you. It is easier to convince people to willingly accept the fact that information from their PC will be collected when using the vendor's online services for their software product, than it would be for them to just collect information from your PC without you even knowing it.
 
Anyone have a zipped version of the Threats and Countermeasures Guide? Why does it have to be an .exe? :confused:
 
SkaarjMaster said:
Anyone have a zipped version of the Threats and Countermeasures Guide? Why does it have to be an .exe? :confused:
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It's a self extracting file. It won't "install" anything. In fact it compressed using Winzip.
 
Super Mario said:
I DO NOT want Error Report submission dialog boxes coming up when ever a program crashes or I encounter a critical system error. I can disable certain services to prevent certain things from coming up that I hate. So disabling services is a good thing to stop your OS from doing things you hate as long as you know what your doing.
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Well lookie here...

lookie.jpg


The good people at Redmond included the option just for you...
 
What happens if you check that box that says "but notify me when critical errors occur" and error reporting is still disabled? Does this mean it notifies the user only and doesn't send it over the Internet?
 
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