Okay, let's discuss how to get rid of these processes...

[NoelC]

Some new info:

 

Setting the Tile Data model server service to Disabled stops quite a few processes from starting at the expense of it maybe taking a few extra seconds to log in (I didn't do an objective measurement). 

 

Consider this list of processes, after having booted and logged into the system, then let it settle without any applications running:

 

 

Without the several processes that are unique to my setup the list of running processes would be in the mid 30s, and I see about 1 GB of RAM used.  Not terribly different from a tweaked, lean Win 7 system.

 

I guess I've been pretty successful here...  Note that nowhere in the above list do we see, from my original post in this thread:

 

• InstallAgent.exe
• RuntimeBroker.exe
• SettingSyncHost.exe
• ShellExperienceHost.exe
• svchost running UnistackSvcGroup

 

But bear in mind that with the Tile Data model server service set to Disabled some apparently necessary services from the above list DO auto-start if I open the Notifications slide-out or start the Settings App.  The bad news is that once they've started they don't seem to ever want to self-exit.  But still, once you have a system fairly completely set up, you might not visit the Settings App nor need to open the Notifications slide-out.  I'm not sure whether just having a notification pop up on the corner of the screen would start those services.

 

Now I need to use the system like this for a while to see what if anything doesn't work right.

 

Edit:  An odd side effect of not running the Tile Data model server...  The only Modern App I run, Settings, no longer shows up in Alt - Tab listings - yet I can start it (e.g., by the little icon in the corner of the Notifications slide-out) and interact with it.  This tells me that the architecture - if you can call it that - of Windows 10 is a real mess.

 

I still haven't found out what starts taskhostw.exe.

 

-Noel

Edited September 30, 2015 by NoelC

[maxXPsoft]

I still haven't found out what starts taskhostw.exe.

 

-Noel

 

Could this be it. Look after blue

Or is it other way around, just looked at command line for taskhostw in Process Hacker

taskhostw.exe {222A245B-E637-4AE9-A93F-A59CA119A75E}

 

Edited October 1, 2015 by maxXPsoft

[NoelC]

Just installed the latest cumulative update, KB3093266...  Re-ran the latest O & O ShutUp10 and saw a few new entries I wanted to change, but surprisingly the update didn't undo any of the changes from before. 

 

I did just change the Windows Update service to Disabled to see if it really shuts up the nightly attempts to contact servers all over the place.  Of course I'll manually enable it and run Windows Update occasionally...  Sigh, we're such a long way from where we ought to be, where we can just have it run on automatic and accept Windows Updates.  At least it still passes an SFC check.

 

Anyway, I mention all this because it means now I need to check for regressions and to get familiar with everything that's running for a while.  I see the "Windows Connect Now Config Registrar" is running where it wasn't before...  Sigh...

 

Thanks for the additional info, maxXPsoft.  I haven't yet had much time to research ubpm.dll in any great detail.

 

-Noel

Edited October 1, 2015 by NoelC

[NoelC]

FYI, with the Windows Update service completely disabled, my Windows 10 test VM didn't contact anyone last night, though it DID make several contacts today (23.14.84.57:80, 23.14.84.48:80, 93.184.215.200:80).

 

This represents a reduction - but notably NOT elimination - of online chattiness.

 

-Noel

[NoelC]

I tried disabling the AppModel StateRepository Service, eliminating one more svchost.exe process.  The system still booted up okay, but unfortunately no longer was it possible to open the Notification / Action Center pull-out.  I did notice that, for the first time, it did NOT log the System Error normally seen complaining that DCOM Server: CortanaUI is unavailable.  Looks like a connection there.

 

I wish they wouldn't have made such a hodgepodge combo out of these oil and water systems.  How they could even imagine a way to release such a half-baked setup...  Sigh...  Any normal project designer would have created a whole new shell.

 

I tried running Win 10 for a little while without taskhostw.exe (having terminated it manually) and didn't see any obvious problems, but that wasn't a controlled test.  A longer, more controlled test of that is next.

 

-Noel

[Techie007]

    I just learned more about taskhostw.exe today.  It is the new task host process (surprise!) for several user-mode tasks that used to run inside of separate taskeng.exe processes under Windows 7 and 8.  I love it when Microsoft innovates like this.  Here, they were attempting to reduce the number of processes running in the background by consolidating two or three taskeng.exe processes into a single taskhostw.exe process.

 

    Process Explorer and Process Hacker both don't know how to enumerate the tasks it's hosting, so I found out the following by trial and error (watching its CPU usage while I started and stopped running tasks helped point me in the right direction).  On my computer, it is hosting the following tasks:

• Multimedia\SystemSoundsService (redirected emulator for the PC Beep function; never missed it being off, although I do miss the physical PC speaker on PCs, and the old beep.sys that would make the PC speaker on existing PCs still function.  Was very useful for alarms when the speakers were off, headphones plugged in, or the volume muted).
• TextServicesFramework\MsCtfMonitor (not sure that it does anything on a single-language system; I've never missed it being off).
• Wininet\CacheTask (never missed it being off; but I use Firefox for my web browsing and it uses its own web and DNS cache mechanisms).

 

    If you stop all those tasks, taskhostw.exe will exit.  Now I'm not sure what ubpm.dll has to do with taskhostw.exe anymore, except that we know that it has its name and that mysterious GUID embedded inside.

[NoelC]

What are you going to do when Windows 10.1 arrives through WinUpdate and resets everything?

 

Yes, here we are again with build 10586, which restored bunches of unwanted stuff, reset many preferences (especially in the realm of privacy), and re-enabled many Task Scheduler entries.  O&O Shut Up 10 shows massive reversions.

 

I'm looking at the following running processes in build 10586 at the moment, wondering once again how to send them to oblivion...

 

ApplicationFrameHost.exe

RuntimeBroker.exe

SearchUI.exe

ShellExperienceHost.exe

sihost.exe

svchost.exe running the UnistackSvcGroup

SystemSettings.exe

WUDFHost.exe

 

Glad I posted this thread before; my notes are a bit weak on this subject.

 

-Noel

[NoelC]

WUDFHost.exe stopped after I disabled the Microsoft Visual Studio Location Simulator Sensor in the Device Manager.

 

svchost.exe running UnistackSvcGroup doesn't start after Disabling UserDataSvc, UnistoreSvc, PimIndexMaintenanceSvc and OneSyncSvc.

 

-Noel

Edited November 15, 2015 by NoelC

[dencorso]

@NoelC: Maybe this can be of help?
 
Delenda Cortana!

[NoelC]

That looks like a nice tool.  I'll give it a try.  Thanks!

 

-Noel

[ekoforever]

NoelC,

 

You've put a lot of good information here together and I'd like to follow this thread as you further and further reduce the processes that MS wants to run at startup.  I'm getting my Windows 10 laptop in about a week and have been scouring online forums and posts for optimizing the OS.  

 

Do you plan on putting a guide together of the work you've done and the insights you've found?  I know that there are many tweaker/privacy apps out there like below but wasn't sure if you were going to maybe document all of the changes necessary to minimize the number of processes running at startup.  I'd be very interested in your findings and can possibly help out with some of the research once my laptop arrives.

 

w10privacy

winprivacy

winpatrol

O&O ShutUp10

 

 

Great work

[NoelC]

Thanks for the feedback. 

 

For Windows 7 and 8 I wrote a couple of books on tweaking.

 

For Windows 10 I've got to be honest - I'm just not feeling the love enough to create a book, and so far I have just compiled mostly notes.  That being said, I'll be willing to discuss specifics here at any time.

 

The one thing that motivates me, personally, that will not sit well with most others is that I absolutely have no use for Metro / Modern / Universal Apps, so I undertake to remove as much of them and their supporting subsystem as I can.  Unfortunately, there's no way to carve it ALL out, since we now need at least SOME of what the Settings App does, and the Taskbar and Notifications / Action Center also uses the XAML / Modern stuff.

 

In summary:  What I have right now is a no-nonsense setup with these attributes:

• Win 10 build 10586, fully up to date.
• UAC is disabled.
• Has Aero Glass and a much improved theme atlas on the desktop.
• Does NOT automatically update itself, I have a small procedure to go through to check for updates, then get new ones.
• Does NOT try very hard to communicate online, and what DOES still try is blocked by a deny-by-default firewall.
• Has NO Metro / Modern / Universal Apps, but does run Settings and the Notifications / Action Center.
• Keeps Windows Defender up to date.
• Settles to a running process count in the low 40s (about 10 of which are features I've installed), using 1GB RAM.

 

Of the processes I listed at the top of this thread, I currently still have these:

• RuntimeBroker.exe - Manages permissions / trust for Modern Apps.
• ShellExperienceHost.exe - Unversal App integration in the shell.  Needed for Settings.
• sihost.exe - Shell Infrastructure Host.
• taskhostw.exe - running {222A245B-E637-4AE9-A93F-A59CA119A75E}.

I believe I had one or two more of them not running before the 10586 in-place "upgrade", and I just need to look yet again to see whether any more of them can come back out.  Microsoft, with the 4 month "major release" cycle, is quite honestly wearing me down.

 

-Noel

Edited November 23, 2015 by NoelC

[NoelC]

@NoelC: Maybe this can be of help?

 

 

By the way, that helped me identify TimeBorker (er, TimeBroker ) as a service to be disabled, and I'm looking at a few others.  Thanks again.

 

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\TimeBroker]"Start"=dword:00000004

 

-Noel

[ekoforever]

Thanks for the feedback. 

 

For Windows 7 and 8 I wrote a couple of books on tweaking.

 

For Windows 10 I've got to be honest - I'm just not feeling the love enough to create a book, and so far I have just compiled mostly notes.  That being said, I'll be willing to discuss specifics here at any time.

 

The one thing that motivates me, personally, that will not sit well with most others is that I absolutely have no use for Metro / Modern / Universal Apps, so I undertake to remove as much of them and their supporting subsystem as I can.  Unfortunately, there's no way to carve it ALL out, since we now need at least SOME of what the Settings App does, and the Taskbar and Notifications / Action Center also uses the XAML / Modern stuff.

 

In summary:  What I have right now is a no-nonsense setup with these attributes:

• Win 10 build 10586, fully up to date.
• UAC is disabled.
• Has Aero Glass and a much improved theme atlas on the desktop.
• Does NOT automatically update itself, I have a small procedure to go through to check for updates, then get new ones.
• Does NOT try very hard to communicate online, and what DOES still try is blocked by a deny-by-default firewall.
• Has NO Metro / Modern / Universal Apps, but does run Settings and the Notifications / Action Center.
• Keeps Windows Defender up to date.
• Settles to a running process count in the low 40s (about 10 of which are features I've installed), using 1GB RAM.

 

Of the processes I listed at the top of this thread, I currently still have these:

• RuntimeBroker.exe - Manages permissions / trust for Modern Apps.
• ShellExperienceHost.exe - Unversal App integration in the shell.  Needed for Settings.
• sihost.exe - Shell Infrastructure Host.
• taskhostw.exe - running {222A245B-E637-4AE9-A93F-A59CA119A75E}.

I believe I had one or two more of them not running before the 10586 in-place "upgrade", and I just need to look yet again to see whether any more of them can come back out.  Microsoft, with the 4 month "major release" cycle, is quite honestly wearing me down.

 

-Noel

 

 

Keep up the good work.   I've been putting together a tweak script/checklist and am in the process of turning it into both a setup guide for an initial image then a script for running either after the install or after each reboot....Depending on M$'s choices

[NoelC]

Stephen Kung has responded that not finding Unicode text in binary files is by design in grepWin.  I've appealed that decision but he may have a basic limitation in his design.

 

By the way, that's being fixed in the next release - it will be able to locate Unicode text in binary files.  I have already tested it by building the trunk code from SourceForge.

 

-Noel