What Processes are Necessary for Windows XP?

Brickwall asks: "I studied electrical engineering in university (30 years ago, mind!), so I'm not completely stupid about computers. However, I have searched and searched, and been unable to find an answer to this question: if you start up Windows XP from scratch, what processes should be running? I have some P2P software running, so I know I'll have to shut that down, plus my spyware protection, anti-virus software, etc. But what should be left running? Is this documented somewhere that I've been unable to find?"

Comments

Black Viper's list

[rdwald]

The original site has been offline for a few years, but this copy of the Black Viper Windows XP Services List should come in very handy.

Re:Black Viper's list

[Bios_Hakr]

Just after SP2 came out, I found BV's list. I did a clean install with a slipstreamed SP2 disc and counted the processes and memory usage. It was something like 90mb usage and 45 processes in use.

After that, I hammered through the list disabling everything not essential to gaming. A the end, I had 22 processes and 80mb usage.

My primary intent was to clear up unused memory to make gaming more stable and faster. In this, it was a complete failure. Quake3 and other benchmarks showed a neglegable boost; maybe a few FPS.

I didn't do a security scan, but I'm sure OpenPorts would have showed a slightly more closed system. But I really don' think it would have been any more secure.

Tweaking services is really not worth the time/effort when you look at the gains. If you need more performance, a faster proc and memory can be had for maybe $200~$400. If you need more security, install a Linksys router between you and your ISP's modem. Or, you can spend 4~6 hours tweaking services for a 10mb memory boost like I did. Your choice.

Re:Black Viper's list

[ivan256]

install a Linksys router between you and your ISP's modem

Or, you know... a non-Linksys one?

Re:Black Viper's list

[Anonymous Coward]

No, that would be stupid; akin to installing an non-HP printer, or a non-Cisco router.

Re:Black Viper's list

[Anonymous Coward]

4-6 hours tweaking services? Right. Even when using the list as a reference, it takes at tops 15 minutes to tweak services.

You also seem to forget that on slower systems the performance boost will be far more noticeable than on a gaming rig. Along the same lines, the time it takes to completely load WinXP into a useable state will decrease. That "10mb" can make a huge difference on a system with low memory - much like the ones they initially shipped WinXP on.

Re:Black Viper's list

[Bios_Hakr]

>>4-6 hours tweaking services? Right. Even when using the list as a reference, it takes at tops 15 minutes to tweak services.

Once you have done the process a few times, it becomes second nature. However, for the first few times, you have to disable a few services and then test your applications to ensure everything works. Can I still browse the network? Does SSL still work? Can I still resolve domain names? Can I still print? Do my games still work? Can I still adjust my video preferences?

All these questions have to be answered after every step. In reality, you should disable a few services and then run the system for a week or so to make sure it's okay.

The first time I ran through this, I read BV's site completely. Couple that with trying to decipher some of the more unusual services and then actually disabling and testing and it can be a weekend job.

>>You also seem to forget that on slower systems the performance boost will be far more noticeable than on a gaming rig. Along the same lines, the time it takes to completely load WinXP into a useable state will decrease. That "10mb" can make a huge difference on a system with low memory - much like the ones they initially shipped WinXP on.

Many of the people running those systems will never even know about disabling services. Chances are, if you really care about performance, you'll care enough to throw in a few sticks of RAM. On low-end systems, RAM is really cheap. I just added a 1GB of pc133 to my mom's computer. I got 512 from a geeky friend who was upgrading for free. The other 512 came from a swap meet and cost about $20.

And no ammount of service tweaking will replace the boost you see from going from 128MB to 1GB of RAM.

Tweaking is fun for geeks. That's what we do. But within the realm of mere mortals, it's a lost art. We'll spend hours to squeeze out a few extra FPS or reduce boot times by a few seconds. We'll install 10k RPM drives in RAID0 to get a few extra MB of transfer. And that's all well and good if your system is already at the top of the heap.

As far as the low end goes, the old adage remains true: you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

Re:Black Viper's list

[Bios_Hakr]

Linksys routers run Linux. Their firewalling capabilities range from a simple everything open to the fully locked IPCHAINS (or is it IPTABLES). Plus, my experience with other routers leaves a lot to be desired.

Re:Black Viper's list

[CMiYC]

Not all of them. In fact, do any other than the one model?

Re:Black Viper's list

[cicatrix1]

They used to. Maybe some still do, but as of hw revision 5 (been around 4-5 months or so) they are running something else.

Re:Black Viper's list

[stefanlasiewski]

Linksys routers run Linux.

Most of Linksys' routers do not run Linux. Many models of the the WRT54G line (and it's decendants) run Linux. However, lately Linksys started to use the VxWorks kernel instead of Linux, starting with the WRT54G version 5.0 .

Re:Black Viper's list

[Anonymous Coward]

Black Viper has probably caused more problems for Windows novices than anyone else in the history of the internet. Countless people blindly follow his guides, only to ignore that part that says "keep a list of which services you've turned off", and innevitbaly have problems later on. To add inuslt to injury, there has been no conclusive proof that disabling services improves performance one iota.

The WIndows NT line is not like the Win9x line. It doesn't have the silly resource limits of Win9x and can swap out unused memory ot disk. When you save "20MB of memory" by disabling a bunch of services, you are actually saving 20MB of data in your swap file, since Windows will swap out the memory your services are using to disk to make room for your apps.

Re:Black Viper's list

[BandwidthHog]

Black Viper has probably caused more problems for Windows novices than anyone else in the history of the internet.

I guess we’re not counting the Windows dev team in this tally, are we?

Re:Black Viper's list

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, he has caused the second most problems, but my point stands.

Re:Black Viper's list

[Mistlefoot]

Another helpful site is Answers That Work

Re:Black Viper's list

[jericho4.0]

Only the one, the WRT54GL. It's simply version 4 (the're now on 5) of the router. It sells for about a $10 premium, and is well worth it, with the functionality of openWRT.

Re:Black Viper's list

[PygmySurfer]

Plus, my experience with other routers leaves a lot to be desired.

My experience with Linksys routers leaves a lot to be desired.

At least they're not as bad as Netgear, though.

Re:Black Viper's list

[Anonymous Coward]

If you download the reg files on BV's site it takes about a min. to change these settings. For each version of XP and each seperate list of settings, such as Safe, Gaming etc. he provides a downloadable file that implements the changes and another file that restores the changes.
Apply the settings file of your choice and reboot, if you don't like them apply the restore settings reg file and reboot. I use the safe reg settings then manually restore the networking setting, which you don't need unless you have an intranet.

Re:Black Viper's list

[jZnat]

Exactly. Just get OpenWrt or something simpler like DD-WRT; enable sshd; and there you go. You can log in to your router via SSH (root@192.168.1.1 probably, use the administrative password), and from there you can run iptables and all its related programs for network management. Of course, if you went with a Cisco router, you'd be able to do that much more easily, but those are kinda, well, expensive for home use...

Re:Black Viper's list

[ivan256]

Lots of routers run Linux. Very few of Linksys' routers run linux. They're also overpriced and have a poor security record.

Re:Black Viper's list

[Jeff DeMaagd]

The BV list is enough, it doesn't take long and it doesn't really need a lot of experimentation. It does not take long to go through the entire list. I question the consumerist view of just replacing or upgrading when what already exists can do the job. I question the need to upgrade to 1GB of RAM, except for major projects and games, I usually fall short of needing 512MB of RAM.

That and once the OS is tweaked, then you can just make an image and reinstall from the image.

Re:Black Viper's list

[Anonymous Coward]

At least they're not as bad as Netgear, though.

I've always been much more impressed by Netgears stuff than Linksys or most of the competition. Yeah, if you're planning on crashing the router and building a custom linux system on that, Linksys is the way to go. I don't want the headaches

Re:Black Viper's list

[fbjon]

Though the WRT54GL v5 runs on linux, and has basically the same hardware, except more memory.

Re:Black Viper's list

[FractalZone]

To add inuslt to injury, there has been no conclusive proof that disabling services improves performance one iota.

Microsoft Windows is horribly inefficent in terms of memory space. Swap files expand memory by mapping it onto one or more relatively ponderous disk drives and create more work for the processor when they are used.

It takes significant time to swap crap in and out of RAM from/to slower magnetic storage. It takes some finite amount of time (overhead) to switch tasks. Memory that is being used by some lame Winblows service that you aren't actually utilizing productively is wasted and forces the programs you are really using to make due with less. What part of finite resources do you not understand?

For people with 2+GHz PCs with 1+GB of RAM, the performance gained by cutting down on the bloated nature of Microsloth Winblows may not be all that significant, but it is always measurable on any machine; which proves you wrong and I can now sleep better having done my good deed for today. :-)

Re:Black Viper's list

[Anonymous Coward]

FWIW: it is possible to run out of handles, or use up it's virtual memory ...

Re:Black Viper's list

[onedobb]

He was giving the linux people some props. Linksys did make a router that you could load linux on. Otherwise all of the anti M$ people would have burried him.

Re:Black Viper's list

[Thangodin]

I just bought a Linksys, replacing a Netgear, and so far it's great. Loved the features on the Netgear, hated the instability. Damn thing took up to an hour to boot; it kept crashing over and over again. Netgear is sucking badly these days. The Linksys boots in seconds, and has all the features I want anyway.

Re:Black Viper's list

[Anonymous Coward]

You are being a pedantic anti-"microsloth" fanboy, and you have no clue how modern operating systems work.

So I shouldn't have said "one iota", because memory saved is memory saved, no matter how insignifigant. But we're talking in the 20-30MB range. On all but the most pathetic of systems, this is for all intents and purposes, nothing. These services that people turn off are for the most part idle 99% of the time, and regardless of how "horribly inneficient" you think Windows is, Windows does in fact swap these processes' memory out to virtual memory with no problem.

"It takes significant time to swap crap in and out of RAM from/to slower magnetic storage. It takes some finite amount of time (overhead) to switch tasks.

Yes. "Finite", as in, "not noticable or even measurable on any system that Windows XP will run on".

Memory that is being used by some lame Winblows service that you aren't actually utilizing productively is wasted and forces the programs you are really using to make due with less.

No it's not. The memory of idle processes is paged out to disk, so your apps still have access to all of the phyical memory. They might have 20MB less space in the page file, but who cares? If your apps need to use the page file, your screwed performance-wise anyway.

What part of finite resources do you not understand?"

What part of premptive multitasking and virtual memory management don't you understand?

Here is a link for you. It's a google cache of a thread showing the test results of an experiment some guy did to see if turning off services in Windows XP helped performance. The conclusion was that turning off a bunch of services doesn't help performance one bit. I've done similar tests myself on my own computer out of curiosity and found the same thing: Turning of services in Windows to increase performance is a waste of time. Now, it *may* help boot-up times a bit, and turning off a few select services may help security, but as for performance, once you're up and running all turning off services will do is make things that depend on those services fail.

"I can now sleep better having done my good deed for today."

Yes. Thank you for showing your ignorance to the world.

Re:Black Viper's list

[PygmySurfer]

I have an FVS318v3 and a WG302, both have been RMA'd twice. I haven't even bothered opening the latest units they've shipped, I figure I'd be better off ebaying them than trying to use them.

In addition, Netgear's support has got to be the worst in the industry. They repeatedly let cases close without so much as updating them (cases automatically close after 10 days). Several times they'd leave a note in the case they were escalating it to 2nd level, at which point it'd never be looked at again. Often times I'd repeatedly make updates to cases while waiting for a response, asking what was going on, and it'd be flat-out ignored.

If I can convince one person not to buy from Netgear, I'd be a happy person. If somehow I could get everyone to stop purchasing their crap.. man would that feel great :)

Re:Black Viper's list

[pla]

Can I still browse the network?

You can safely leave the "Computer Browser" service set to "manual", and it will almost never actually turn on.


Does SSL still work?

The "HTTP SSL" service has nothing to do with what it sounds like - You can safely disable that.


Can I still resolve domain names?

"The DNS Client service" only acts as a cache, you can safely disable it and DNS queries still work just fine.


Can I still print?

That one, you need to leave turned on if you have a printer. Though if you only print once a month or so, you can leave it set to manual and just turn it on when you need it (it won't autostart on demand, though - I use a shortcut to "net start spooler" to turn it on for the rare occasions when I print).


Can I still adjust my video preferences?

Completely disable any services and startup programs related to your video card - They do nothing for you that you can't still do by going to the normal control panel's display properties page.



And no ammount of service tweaking will replace the boost you see from going from 128MB to 1GB of RAM

Very true! But why not do both? ;-)

It's simple.

[Poromenos1]

Here's what I do: Fire the task manager and start killing processes. When something you need closes, that one was needed. Same for when the system crashes.

You'll find that most are unnecessary.

Re:It's simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

> Fire the task manager and start killing processes.
> When something you need closes, that one was needed.

Oddly enough this was how I found a Unixish countdown that I'd never seen before in WindowsXP.

"The system is shutting DOWN in 30 seconds!"

Ooops. :)

Re:It's simple.

[Drgnkght]

A few of the Windows services monitor some of the other services. (I don't remember which ones off the top of my head.) If you kill one that Microsoft doesn't want you to stop another service will initiate a shutdown. IIRC, winlogon does this as well as a few others.

Re:It's simple.

[MindStalker]

BTW if you ever have this happen to you again you can drop to dos and type shutdown /a
This aborts the shutdown.

You can also use the shutdown command in scripting/scheduling as well. shutdown /? obviously gives you all info needed.

Re:It's simple.

[FLEB]

You can get that as well using the shutdown command.

It's a handy one to know for when you want to SHUT the machine DOWN, come hell, high water (or more likely) stalling programs that won't die. If you're on a machine with no remote users, just put it on a very short delay and let 'er rip. It won't stall or ask you to End stalled tasks.

It's also useful for shutting down remote machines. (For both cases, see the /? help.) With a wake-on-lan activator (the only part not included with XP, I forget the particular one I use), Remote Desktop, and the shutdown command, I easily control my desktop file-serving machine from power-on to power-off, from the laptop in the other room.

Re:It's simple.

[Jherico]

That's an excellent way to completely screw up your machine by disabling services that might be needed later for things like printing. If you shut down the spooler and then 3 weeks later need to print something you can spend a long time trying to figure out why printing doesn't work.

Re:It's simple.

[pembo13]

reboot?

Re:It's simple.

[creepynut]

If you disable a service. It's disabled, not just turned off.

Re:It's simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why the GGP said to kill the processes with task manager.

You could also set it to manual so that it starts when needed.

Re:It's simple.

[vonsneerderhooten]

Better yet, use process explorer from sysinternals.com. It can kill processeseses taskman cannot.

/wasted
//dont care
///hope this helps

Re:It's simple.

[pembo13]

But killing the process isn't disabling it.

Re:It's simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

It can kill processeseses

Which processeseses my preciousssss?

Re:It's simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy typo!

Re:It's simple.

[StrongAxe]

BTW if you ever have this happen to you again you can drop to dos and type shutdown /a This aborts the shutdown.

This makes a kind of perverted Microsoft sense - to shut down your computer press the START button. To stop it from shutting down, run the SHUTDOWN command... ;)

Re:It's simple.

[Emetophobe]

As soon as I install Windows XP Pro, I run services.msc and disable all the services I don't need, since I've done this dozens of times, I know what I'm doing, but it really isn't that hard, microsoft provides some pretty good descriptions of what the service does next to the service name in services.msc.

If you don't have a printer, disable the printer spooler service, otherwise leave it enabled.
If you have a static ip, you can disable the dhcp client service.
If you don't have a wireless card or don't need windows to automatically configure your wireless card for you, disable wireless zero configuration.
You get the idea..

A majority of the services that are set to run by default in Windows XP are totally unnecessary and can increase load and boot times, and some can even pose an additional security risk (remote registry, telnet, routing and remote access, are just a couple of the services that are set to run by default). It only takes 5min to disable all the services you don't need (if you know what you're doing). It's a pretty simple task for your typical slashdotter, probably not for your grandma though.

Re:It's simple.

[joeyteel]

If you have a static ip, you can disable the dhcp client service.

Unless you happen to use certain models of Linksys wireless networking hardware. Some of their wireless devices to refuse to work even in a static configuration unless the DHCP service is enabled.

Very few are neccessary

[Anonymous Coward]

For example, if I kill this "System" process, nothing bad will happ

Re:Very few are neccessary

[Lehk228]

can't do it, i just tried and it failed silently

Re:Very few are neccessary

[grammar fascist]

For example, if I kill this "System" process, nothing bad will happ

That was freakin' amazing! How did you get your web browser to hit the "Submit" button just before the "System" process died?

Is that, like, a new Mozilla plugin you can use to help you make funny posts on Slashdot? 'Cuz I wa

Re:Very few are neccessary

[karnal]

You must be new h

Re:Very few are neccessary

[pVoid]

Actually, system is not a true process and you can not kill it.

However, killing winlogon will instantly shut off your computer. That's because the kernel launches and does a "WaitForSingleObject on the Winlogon process. As soon as winlogon exits, the kernel shuts down.

Re:Very few are neccessary

[grammar fascist]

Actually, I've ju

Re:Very few are neccessary

[bombshelter13]

Oh, come on already. Doesn't the joke get a little tired after the third time it's rep

Re:Very few are neccessary

[Anonymous Coward]

You must be ne

Re:Very few are neccessary

[Anonymous Coward]

No that one's necessary but if you want your system to work harder kill the "System Idle Process"
 
I mean honestly who needs an idle system?

Re:Very few are neccessary

[fbjon]

No no, it's the other way around: the plugin kills the System process if it detects a "funny" post.

Re:Very few are neccessary

[plague3106]

I don't think so; winlogon is your logon process, so at most I believe that will log you out. Check out a Server with several remote users logged in; there should be one of those processses for each user.

Not that easy

[cnettel]

There are a few drivers that add their own usermode services (not just tray apps, but "real" services), for example. I'm not sure from the question if the intent is to get a lean system, or an attempt to identify unwanted - as in possible malware - processes. Googling individual process file names generally gives a pretty good picture of what it is and whether it's needed, or at least where it comes from.

Saw these on Digg some time back

[bheer]

Guide to useless XP services ... I don't think all the ones they mention are 'useless', for example SSDP Discovery is very useful to those using UPnP DSL/Cable modems and UPnP-savvy software like uTorrent or Azureus, but it's still a good article: http://www.techtree.com/techtree/jsp/article.jsp?a rticle_id=70112&cat_id=584

Mark Russinovich asked this question...

[johnjones]

he asked this question and then wen out and built some tools to find out why...

better see what he thought infact a link to it should be in the slashdot archives somewhere under some heading...

regards

John Jones

Re: Mark Russinovich asked this question...

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's the link:
http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/2005/07/running-w indows-with-no-services.html

Note that the original poster is asking about processes, and many readers are answering with information more specifically about services, including this Sysinternals article. Still, it's relevant even if not the entire story.

You can also google for the names of your process executables and usually find descriptions of what they are.

I don't use windows...

[zogger]

..but I recalled this site existed

http://www.litepc.com/xplite.html

I imagine they have determined all of those services and figured out which are really necessary or not

Re:I don't use windows...

[RpiMatty]

http://www.nliteos.com/nlite.html

Here is a free (as in beer) alternative to that.
Lets you customize your windows 2k/xp install disk, and configure windows before you even install it.

Re:I don't use windows...

[Hektor_Troy]

It's very cool, but there are some things it can't do.

I've used it to customize install disks for my two laptops. The old laptop install disk is perfect. Everything works perfectly.

This laptop however is not so lucky. None of the drivers I have for it will install through the driver part of nlite, although they look like they will when you try. Instead you end up with the installer complaining about missing files probably 150+ times.

Secondly, I figured that since I already have drivers for my NIC, I could remove the standard one from the install - bad idea on this laptop. It worked with no problems on the old one, but on this one it doesn't. Without the standard windows driver, the NIC "works", as long as you're dealing with packets smaller than 128 bytes for some reason.

None of this is nlite's fault of course - it's down to shoddy drivers obviously, so my suggestion and advice for using nlite is fairly simple:

1) Use a CD-RW (or DVD-RW) until you come up with a really good image that'll work.
2) Start out by NOT removing anything from the install and simply adding to it. When you then go to make a new one, you can use your new image (with all the drivers and addon programs) as a base and slowly remove stuff from it instead.

When you remove stuff, you'll come across odd things that were side effect. For instance, I found that by removing Windows Media Player (I use Media Player Classic myself), you aparently remove all MS codecs as well, so you'll need to add those later. THAT in turn might result in some of your tweaks going right out the window by mistake.

nlite is really cool - but it's not a fix-all that'll make everything right with a few hours of work. But I love the fact taht I can now just pop in the image (for the old laptop at least) and have a very well set up Windows, drivers, programs etc., and be sure that if I give the computer to any family member, it won't be overrun by crappy spyware etc. unless it was embedded in a trojan or makes its way past Firefox and Thunderbird.

Re:I don't use windows...

[LiquidAvatar]

A method that might ease the testing phase of this would be to use a hosted virtualization platform. That way, you can generate the ISO and attach it to a VM as a CD (cutting out the burn/reburn process) and install it onto a virtual machine. Another benefit to this strategy is that you aren't wiping out your system several times a day until everything is right - you can keep your system intact and repeatedly reinstall the virtual machine until you're happy with a build that you'll want to move to your machine.

Unfortunately, this technique won't work too well for driver preparation (virtual machines are typically presented with generic virtual hardware), but it will help you to iron out any kinks as far as Apps are concerned (like the parent mentions with Windows Media Player).

Re:I don't use windows...

[Hektor_Troy]

True. One thing it will do wrt drivers though, is give you an excelent idea of which drivers will integrate in a nice way and which won't.

We just hired Russinovich.

[Philip K Dickhead]

So as soon as he tells us, we at Microsoft will be able to pass this on to you, too!

depends

[brenddie]

It all depends on what is the role of your PC. I used to have somewhere a list of services grouped by profiles like: gaming, workstation, networked etc.. Each profile had diferent services running. For example a workstation needs most of the services while a gaming PC will benefit from the least amount of background processes
Hacking Windows XP: Speed Up Your Boot
You can also use autoruns from systernals (is still online!!11ONE??) to check your startup services/applications

Do not kill the following processes....

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Windows Genurine Advantage
2. Windows Activation Trojan
3. Automatic Updates with added value checking
4. Minesweeper
5. SaveBargins.exe
6. Vista Notification Bonus

Useless Services

[Xian007]

This is a pretty handy site.. I just ran across it a couple days ago and was about to look through it at home today and disable most of the services listed.

Useless XP SP2 Services: http://www.techtree.com/techtree/jsp/article.jsp?a rticle_id=70112&cat_id=584

(Quick way to get to list: Start->Run->services.msc)

minimal services/processes

[erikdotla]

I did a long experiment and paper about this very subject. I call it an XP "Chopper" like the bikes, as they (at least originally) had parts chopped as they broke during races, starting a minimalist bike trend called Choppers.

http://knepfler.com/chopper/

How to make IT get you a new computer

[martinkb]

Write a program that kills the process WINLOGON.EXE. Then put this in your Startup folder. Make sure everything is backed up before shutting down. When you start back up you will automaticly go to the BSOD.

<p>Call IT. They will be confused. Tell them that there is nothing they can do. They will beleve you. Then tell them that you need that <strike>expensive computer</strike> fancy new MacBook Pro. They will beleve you. You will be happy.</p>

Re:How to make IT get you a new computer

[Moiph]

Meh, I'd just re-image the hard drive (norton ghost), that's what we do most of the time with BSOD boot up problems :P Quick and painless, and it's not worth the trouble of trying to troubleshoot the issue when the staff member just wants to get back to work. (Plus, they're told never to save files to the local drive, in the event that something like this were to happen). Granted then they could just kill winlogon again...in which case I'd punch them in the face.

Re:How to make IT get you a new computer

[shyster]

Write a program that kills the process WINLOGON.EXE. Then put this in your Startup folder. Make sure everything is backed up before shutting down. When you start back up you will automaticly go to the BSOD.

Call IT. They will be confused. Tell them that there is nothing they can do. They will beleve you. Then tell them that you need that expensive computer fancy new MacBook Pro. They will beleve you. You will be happy.

Since it'll only happen on logon, any tech that I'd want working for me would deduce it's a profile problem. At that point, they can rebuild your profile (if they're nice) or just blow it out and you can drool over the MacBook for another year.

Re:How to make IT get you a new computer

[Lehk228]

you will get a "new" computer if you do that

#define new 386SX

Re:How to make IT get you a new computer

[Anonymous Coward]

Only the most incompetent of IT departments would not figure out the problem, and report you to youir supervisor.

Re:How to make IT get you a new computer

[dadragon]

You know, I can't believe anybody ever made a 386SX based computer. What's the point? The DX was out, and was much better.

Well, I guess they make computers based on the Celeron and Sempron processors today.

Re:How to make IT get you a new computer

[Anonymous Coward]

The DX was more expensive, and most apps didn't need its wider 32-bit bus. The real stupidity (which you may be thinking of) was the 486SX/DX lameness.

Close, but no cigar

[Joe U]

Hold down the Shift key while logging in to bypass startup programs.

So when IT sends you a Commodore 64 to do your work you'll know they've figured it out.

Re:Dumb question

[Duhavid]

Sure, call MSFT.

Give them your credit card.

Then they will tell you that the services running
are exactly what you need.

Will they charge the card? I dont know.

Google is your friend

[Entropy248]

I don't know what services should be running, so what I do is get a pen and paper and copy all of the processes I can see in Task Manager. Then, I just Google the filename. I've yet to find a real disagreement in the first page or two of search results about the meaning. Rarely, I can read about the file on a microsoft.com support page for Windows-related stuff. If you have a computer from a BIG manufacturer or exclusively use brand name hardware, this should work for you too.

csrss.exe

[The MAZZTer]

and that's all!

Re:csrss.exe

[Achromatic1978]

Speaking of services... periodically I get notifications that svchost.exe has died - with no further information. Sometimes that means no apps will run until the box is rebooted - anyone know how to determine what the 'child' of svchost is that's actually died is? (No event logging or debug info)

Re:Dumb question

[Sigma 7]

Will they charge the card? I dont know.

Their support policy allows 2 no-charge support requests by phone or e-mail. There is unlimited installation support by phone. There is also free support through newsgroups and partners.

The more advanced versions of Windows XP do not have this charge.

Win2000 better

[mshurpik]

>if you start up Windows XP from scratch, what processes should be running?

Try running Win2000 sp4. It's barely different from XP, which is, from what I can tell, mostly Mac-like icons . W2k is the same thing without the glitter.

I'm very happy with W2K and I'll be trying it again when I get a 64-bit processor. Living in the past...it goes on forever, and keeps getting faster.

Re:Win2000 better

[Anonymous Coward]

Win2k will not run on AMD 64 CPU's for some reason. Atleast it wouldnt for me. Can anyone shed any light on this?

Re:Win2000 better

[dreddnott]

I threw an Athlon 64 3400+ onto a PC that had a previous installation of Windows 2000 SP4. I encountered no problems whatsoever, and I'm afraid I can offer no insight into your apparent situation.

Unfortunately, several months later, when I installed 64-bit Windows (2003 standard) on a secondary hard disk drive, I managed to lose my entire Windows 2000 registry (on the primary drive) due to a rather nasty interaction between my crappy new VIA southbridge and the Windows 64-bit drivers. It eventually scrambled the entire MFT on that drive before I realised that it was the motherboard's fault. I was able to recover the data on my other PC, since the drive was not damaged in any way, while I shopped for a new motherboard - no problems since.

Re:Win2000 better

[Anonymous Coward]

Works fine for me. (opteron)

Re:Win2000 better

[Anonymous Coward]

Win 2k has shitty bluetooth support and can't do network bridging - e.g. using your computer as a wireless access point (damn handy when you're in a hotel and want to play some online MarioKart DS). XP has a win9X compatibility mode that's worth a damn, essential for some older games*. Service Pack 2 also has some security features - nothing you can't get for free with 3rd party apps, but it's nicer to have more stuff working out of the box (see: Ubuntu, OSX).

These are pretty trivial differences, if MS weren't jackasses they'd have patched them into 2K instead of calling it a new OS. But XP genuinely is a better OS, just not worth paying for if you already have 2K.

*unless you multiboot with 9X like I do... I use 2K on my main PC.

My setup

[Richard A Lake]

My setup has these process on bootup
csrss.exe
winlogin.exe
services.exe
svchost.exe -k rpcss
svchost.exe -k netsvcs
lsass.exe
explorer.exe

and the folowing services
COM+ Event System
Cryptographic Services
DHCP Client
Network Connections
Plug and Play
Remote Procedure Call (RPC)
Shell Hardware Detection
System Event Notification
Windows Audio
Windows Management Instrumentation

This does make some activites fail two that I have noted are some install programs(needs Dcom or windows installer) and windows updates.

Check here

[IHSW]

If you're unsure: http://exelib.com/

Process Library

[Rurik]

www.processlibrary.com Enter in each executable in your process list and get detailed info on each there. I use it quite a bit.

Necessary Services?

[ceresur]

I remembered seeing this a few months back on /., but you can load WinXP without any services. Doesn't quite answer the question but it still makes for interesting reading. http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/2005/07/running-w indows-with-no-services.html

Re:Necessary Services?

[jpostel]

Great response. I wish I had mod points.

I would say that the question is best answered by 'teaching to fish'. The sysinternals article is the 'guide to fishing' if not the outright correct answer in this case. XP will run, but it may not do what you expect it to do. One would have to do a process of elimination to determine what they require to work.

I followed the steps laid out in that article to clean up a machine. Once I had it setup for what I needed, my needs changed and I had to tweak the setup. Having learned how to fish, I was able to do it myself.

OMGZ

[cicatrix1]

sounds like at least one person (actually looks like several) on Slashdot should call the Geek Squad.

Mod Parent Up

[mashade]

This is a truly interesting method for killing darn near all the processes on an XP box.

Learned some interesting things in the comments on this post, as well.

Re:None are needed

[iced_773]

Yeah, you should install a completely new OS just to do something like boost performance in WINDOWS games. twitter, is that you? ;)

Re:Dumb question

[oddfox]

Not one but two no-charge support requests?? What a bargain!

XP...?

[kat104]

Cliff, do you have XP Home or XP Pro? SP1 or SP2?

my services

[ChoGGi]

auto:
DCOM Server Process Launcher
Event Log
Plug and Play
Remote Procedure Call (RPC)
Windows Audio
Windows Management Instrumentation
manual:
Cryptographic Services

Re:None are needed

[Ash-Fox]

Yeah, you should install a completely new OS just to do something like boost performance in WINDOWS games. twitter, is that you? ;)

Actually I have seen Windows games perform better under Linux running under Wine (World of Warcraft is one good example I've seen).

Ah yes

[Anonymous Coward]

the futile attempt to look beyond the candy surface, just to find that you are completely helpless because there is no documentation whatsoever and you have to rely on other people or trial and error.

Yep, that's Windows. Layers of candy and easiness covering piles and piles of crap.

Only 2: System and csrss.exe

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's an academic answer from a the infamous Russinovich: only System and csrss.exe are truely necessary to run XP! The practical answer is of course, "it depends on what you want to do with it".

Read these guides

[Enderandrew]

I'm really shocked I haven't seen anyone mention Bold Fortune's guide, nLite, or anything like that.

http://www.bold-fortune.com/forums/
http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?s=51e07579a39b 89452dcfefedd94d476b&showforum=89
http://www.microwinx.com/

When you really dig deep and lock, you can not only disable, but remove a LARGE chunk of Windows. But as for what you can remove, it depends on what your computing needs are. When I make custom install CDs, I take the 600 meg Windows XP SP2 install CD and rip it down to about 140 megs before I start adding back in newer drivers, and apps.

Re:None are needed

[iced_773]

Really?! Which distro are you using? I'm interested.

Disabled, Manual, Automatic

[Ahnteis]

Setting a service to "Disabled" will usually stop it from starting even if needed. Setting it to "Manual" means that it won't start until it's needed. This will result in long "start" time for some activities, but less overhead when you aren't using the service.

When in doubt, set the service to "Manual". When it's something you never want running (Remote Registry for example) set to "Disabled".

Re:Disabled, Manual, Automatic

[HexRei]

I wasn't aware that a service will still be started automatically when you open an application that requires it, if it is set to "Manual". I was under the impression that "Manual" means you have to start it manually- i.e. unless the app you are running is smart enough to call that service on its own (and few do) you'll need to start it up of your own volition.

Re:Disabled, Manual, Automatic

[plague3106]

If manual was what you believed, there'd be no need for Disabled. Haven't you ever see services Started and Manual, but that you didn't reqest to start?

Tiny XP

[mombodog]

Tiny XP words from the hacker himself, can be found on bittorent, second edition is out. "Thank you for you interest in this stripped out (112Mb) Edition of XP. I clocked mine in Task Manager using only 39.5Mb of RAM. Windows XP usually uses 300Mb of RAM at the very least. This "TinyXP" not only runs fast, but takes up only 400Mb total space on your system hard drive. Thats the "WINDOWS" folder, "Documents and settings" and "Program Files" By using only 40Mb of RAM, this allows your PC to run fast, I mean VERY fast! All important hardware drivers and other essentials have been kept in this release - You have joystick support, printer support and other bare essentials. "Microsoft SideWinder" support has been left in. NOTE: You cannot use Microsoft Office with this tiny edition of Windows XP. You still have one Microsoft application left in Windows - MS Paint. The Calculator is gone, as is Wordpad. GONE is that nasty Internet Explorer, it does not exist in this Edition! Whats nice about this TinyXP is this... When this XP has installed, (the install takes just six minutes) you will have a link on the "Start Menu" under "Programs" to a standalone internet browser that takes up only 358Kb on the CD... This "OffByOne" browser is a great space saving alternative to the usual browsers everyone uses. Because WinRAR is also installed with this TinyXP, it is easy to click the browser shortcut in the "Start Menu" and simply drag the file "OB1.exe" out of WinRAR and to any directory you choose. This really is a "standalone" internet browser, would work even on Windows 95 and possibly as far back as Windows 3.11. This browser does not require I.E. or any of the DLL or OCX files I.E. would be using. Hats off to OffByOne! Also included is a standalone BitTorrent client, uTorrent. This tiny BT client is only 105Kb! All the programs included use "nearly zero" resources. Windows Media Player is NOT included at all in this install. You will have to grab some kind of player from somewhere if you want to play movies and audio files. To play WMV or WMA files you will probably have to install some version of the proper "Windows Media Player". It is OK in most cases to then uninstall it and it will leave behind those essential files that were missing, neat trick, but hey we don't want this crap on our system! Things like this just slow it down! GONE also are all Windows noises like startup and shutdown noises, but audio DOES work. You cannot use Microsoft Office, but you DO have support if you want to install a printer... you can see below what devices are supported in TinyXP. This XP Pro SP2 Unattended is so tiny at just 112Mb"

BartPE

[The MAZZTer]

Or I could get BartPE which is a LEGAL stripped-down XP version (since you build it yourself from your own install disks).

Re:None are needed

[Ash-Fox]

Really?! Which distro are you using? I'm interested.

I am using Kubuntu at the moment, my friends believe the reason why it's faster, is generally because the filesystems availible under Linux are far faster (we've noticed far less HD activity).

Re:None are needed

[iced_773]

Actually, I mispoke when I said distro...are you using an emulator such as Cedega or Wine, or are you just using a Linux port of a game? I've got a TON of Windows games that are tethering me to the MS OS.

No doubt something ext3 or Reiser would offer a performance boost over FAT32/NTFS, as well as a Linux graphics driver.

Re:Dumb question

[Duhavid]

I had supposed that the development support and
customer support were about the same.

Mark Russinovich's experiment

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're looking for what's possible, see Mark Russinovich's blog entry from last year. He runs Windows XP with as few processes as possible, then describes what breaks and why.

The Elder Geek

[n3tcat]

The site I've used for the last couple years on every fresh install is The Elder Geek. He lays out every service, what it's used for, and whether he recommends it be disabled or not. The site also has a lot of other valuable information about the innerworkings of XP.

Re:None are needed

[Ash-Fox]

Actually, I mispoke when I said distro...are you using an emulator such as Cedega or Wine, or are you just using a Linux port of a game? I've got a TON of Windows games that are tethering me to the MS OS.

Well, to be honest, Cedega has never worked for me -- worst support puchase ever. However Wine seems to work out of the box with most games. Wine's application DB gives plenty of information on how to get specific games/applications working. I do play some Linux versions of games like Unreal Tournament, Second life.

No doubt something ext3 or Reiser would offer a performance boost over FAT32/NTFS, as well as a Linux graphics driver.

It's a shame graphic card drivers released by ATi/nVidia aren't open specifications, or the 3d accelerated graphic support for new cards would be 'out of the box'.

Re:None are needed

[Brickwall]

Actually, the reason I asked the question was not about performance but to identify viruses, malware, spyware, etc. I have a firewall and anti-virus software, but I'm paranoid.

I No Longer Do It

[Goo.cc]

I used to try to trim XP's services down but no longer. I have plenty of RAM (2GB) and it really doesn't seem to change performance for me. In fact, there are only five system tweaks that I make these days:

1. Set system not to swap out the kernel or drivers (via registry edit).
2. Disable updating last access time (via fsutil).
3. Disable 8.3 filename creation (via fsutil).
4. Move swap to the second hard drive, which is on its own SATA channel.
5. Turn off system restore.

What I dislike is that some services show up as "svchost.exe" in the Task Manager because of the way XP works. It would be nice if MS modified this behavior to better reflect what a process is doing.