Windows 7 - What crap can I turn off running in the background?

buchtis

buchtis

buchtis

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Just gone from XP to 7 and i'm wondering if I can turn off non essential services running in the background.

On XP I used to have 24 running but Windows 7 has 41!

Is there a list anywhere of what I can disable at startup/running in the background?

Want to maximise performance here, i've already disabled Aero and i'm running the 'Classic' theme.

Cheers.
 
just ignore it. there really isn't anything to gain by disabling windows services. instead you should be concentrating on what 3rd party crapola you're thinking about installing.

and with the rig you have in your sig, disabling aero for performance reasons is just ridiculous. but hey ho, it's your machine....
 
Performance Marc, performance!

So there's now useless Windows 'services' that I can disable?

That's fair doos then...
 
You can turn off third party crap like Bonjour if you don't use it, these should stick out like a sore thumb in the services list. Most come with a description which gives you a clue about what will happen if you turn it off.

Really though, turning off Aero on that PC is like emptying sweet wrappers out of your door bins to save weight.
 
one thing i forgot to mention is to disable hibernation if you don't use it. click on start>all programs>accessories>right click "command prompt" and "run as administrator". now type in

powercfg -h off

that saves a good chunk of disk space on your system drive.

but like i said, disabling windows services really is futile. even my crap ass low end single core celeron laptop flies along with aero and all the bells and whistles enabled.
 
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MS services that aren't actively doing anything take up almost no resources. Simply leave them be as you are likely to **** something up for pretty much zero gain.

As above, third-party junk is what you want to clear out/avoid installing. Disabling Aero is utterly, utterly pointless on your machine. Notepad will probably tax it more.
 
Since you probably haven't got the point people in this thread are trying to make :p I'll say it:
You have 8GB RAM, one of the best graphics cards on the market and a insanely fast CPU, why on earth would you want to disable aero?

Currently running 100 processes here and my PC doesn't slow down, so I wouldn't worry about what processes Windows uses, at least yet anyway - you wont be seeing any huge gains or probably not any at all. (My PC is quite similar to yours)
 
Windows 7 isn't like XP was (I remember disabling services in XP really did help) not sure if that is beacause hardware is so much better or if windows 7 just handles stuff better (likely a bit of both) but you'll gain nothing worthwhile from it. The reason you don't see large lists of services with advice on what to disable now a days is that it just ain't needed anymore.
 
What about the systemResponsiveness setting in regedit, anyone messed with the value? it's currently at 0x00000014 (20)

Sounds like this should improve performance
 
You're thinking a registry setting is going to magically make your system faster? Think on. I bet that registry entry doesn't do what you wished it did.
 
Here are the services I've disabled:

HomeGroup Listener
HomeGroup Provider
ICS
Media Center Extender Service
WMP Network Sharing Service
Windows Search
WLAN AutoConfig
 
hyperst said:
What about the systemResponsiveness setting in regedit, anyone messed with the value? it's currently at 0x00000014 (20)

Sounds like this should improve performance
Click to expand...
Yeah. Microsoft shipped windows 7 with a secret option that increases performance by 20% and is turned off by default.

Just leave it be dude, nothing you can do.
 
asim18 said:
Here are the services I've disabled:

HomeGroup Listener
HomeGroup Provider
ICS
Media Center Extender Service
WMP Network Sharing Service
Windows Search
WLAN AutoConfig
Click to expand...

None of those will drastically increase performance, if at all. Even Windows Search isn't particularly resource heavy [and is very good btw, but that's an argument for a different thread].

They do however decrease annoyance - especially with HomeGroup and WMP Sharing if you do not use them.
 
I am running Windows 7 on my Samsung netbook with Atom processor and disabling processes would probably help.

But with any modern dual/quad core processor it isn't needed.
 
Ta for all the replies.

I'm just used to having a finely tuned machine and this is the 1st time i've used Windows 7. I don't see the point of having services and programmes running in the background that are of no use to me hence why I want them turned off. Just a bit iffy about these things that's all.

I don't see why I have to have 41 things running in the background while i'm running no programmes and i'm just on the desktop.
 
I do plenty of gaming and editing so it get hammerd more than you think :)

Thanks for your amazing contribution to the topic though.
 
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