Stop services permanantely

[cluberti]

Here's What You Need to Use Windows XP Professional

• PC with 300 megahertz or higher processor clock speed recommended; 233 MHz minimum required (single or dual processor system);* Intel Pentium/Celeron family, or AMD K6/Athlon/Duron family, or compatible processor recommended

• 128 megabytes (MB) of RAM or higher recommended (64 MB minimum supported; may limit performance and some features)

Yes, Windows XP runs like a dog on old hardware. It was released in 2001, when Intel's P4 was at 2GHz, AMD's AthlonXP was running the Palomino core at ~1.5GHz and 512MB of RAM wasn't unheard of (admittedly with 256MB being pretty standard fare on most people's new hardware purchases from the big-box boys). Install Windows 2000 or Windows 98 on the same hardware and yes, it runs much faster. They also do less security-wise, have fewer features (that you may or may not use), and XP's kernel does much more memory management and optimization cycles requiring a faster CPU to keep up (and let's be honest, even a 1.4GHz P4 is plenty capable of running stock XP at good speed).

Ultimately, do what you'd like with the box - it's your machine, after all, and if you feel it runs better after being nLite'd or tweaked via services, go for it. I'm not here to tell anyone to change their ways, but to put out facts about what does and does not actually happen when you disable a service.

[LLXX]

I watch this topic since the beginning and it was quite interesting, although it looks, that it is turning into a flame war. I have 1,5 GHz and 1 GB RAM. I know for sure, that my PC is faster after tweaking. Clean instalation of Windows XP loaded more than a minute, after tweaking it took about 20 seconds less and my nLited setup (with many services removed) takes 30 seconds and since pressing the boot switch until loading WinXP it takes about 35-40 seconds. It is also noticable, that PC and other aplication runs more smoothly, eg OpenOffice opens in 5 seconds instead of 10 and so on. My Windows folder has 400 MB and I have 5 services running, I start DCOM service only when some MSI installer needs it and I have no problem whatsoever, IE7 or WMP11 work fine without "so needed" WMI service. In fact my PC is much more safer, so I do not need any windows updates after SP2. Just my 2 cents to this matter.

Only 5 services and I'm surprised Themes is one of them

It looks like I've been defeated. Good work! I thought 9 was already nearly minimal... here's what I have:

DHCP Client

Event Log <- "This service cannot be stopped"

Network Connections

Network Location Awareness

Plug and Play

Remote Procedure Call

Security Accounts Manager

Task Scheduler

Windows Management Instrumentation

Are you still able to access the Internet with those network-related services disabled? I thought I disabled them once, then found out I couldn't connect to the Internet, so that's why they're enabled.

I suppose I can set DHCP to manual and start it only when I need to use DHCP to renew my IP...

Thanks for the insipiration, I'll try it out the next reboot

But as I've said before, the Windows bootscreen appears for less than 2 seconds. I wonder how much more improvement I can get...

Edited October 23, 2006 by LLXX

[Zxian]

Ultimately, do what you'd like with the box - it's your machine, after all, and if you feel it runs better after being nLite'd or tweaked via services, go for it. I'm not here to tell anyone to change their ways, but to put out facts about what does and does not actually happen when you disable a service.

Thank you. I'm pretty sure that sums up the POV of most of the people who are saying "leave them alone".

[TheTOM_SK]

how do you attribute your "lightened" XP install to a fully third party program loading faster?

I gained CPU, RAM and there is no HDD activity (eg from creating countless logs).

By the way, I had also disabled DEP and SFC, those can affect performance as well.

I am not a high-tech, just a simple user & I see the difference, how aplications work.

You also forgot to mention that with just those 5 services running, you've limited yourself greatly in the programs that you choose to use.

I do not care about running software, which I would never use and even if I would it is just the matter an one hour. 5 min to backup, 15 minutes to create and burn nLite setup, instal WinXP with other software including settings in 40 minutes.

Just for the comparision, clean setup of original WinXP takes 35 minutes and it loads longer (not by 5 seconds). My nLited WinXP setup installs in 9 minutes (with drives) and installing and settings up the rest software takes only about 30 minutes, since I have almost all settings in my reg file and the rest is just in ini files. I prefer portable aplications, because it is faster to extract than to install and it works the same. If you are interested, here are my settings (nLite, registry, manual).

Only 5 services and I'm surprised Themes is one of them

32-bit icons of IE7 and WMP11 looks terrible in the classic theme.

Event Log <- "This service cannot be stopped"

It can be, but it will really slow down startup, if not removed with nLite, but I would not recommend it to do it, there can be some software, which needs it, as well as WMI.

I suppose I can set DHCP to manual and start it only when I need to use DHCP to renew my IP...

I do the same about once a week, setting up IP manually is safer anyway. I use this file (reg as well) to enable needed services after startup, because I need to enable NetBIOS as well, without it DHCP service will no start. And there are 3 services, which need to be started too otherwise, network icon will not appear.

At the end, I just want to note, that I never recommend my settings to anyone, because every PC can react different, especially based on drivers and software. I just share my settings and let people to "destroy" their WinXP themself. All I say, that it works fine on my PC with my hardware & software, that is all.

I will just add, for me WinXP is like a car, which I optimize in order to do, what I want it to do, so the other people might not want to like it, they even may not be able to use it, but I do and that is important for me. It took more than a year to get WinXP work like this and I am still not finished, when I found a new tweak, I apply it. It is just my hobby. I installed WinXP at least 110 times this year (100 times due to nLite to find the proper settings). I install WinXP at least once per month, just to keep it clean, it is like, how often would you clean up your Porsche, si it would shine?

Edited October 23, 2006 by TheTOM_SK