How to Cut Down on Processes?

After seeing Luciddream only having 13 processes, I want to cut down on my own. However, I need to know:

1. What is a good site to check what a process does? Searching in Google gives a slew of sites, but I don't know how accurate or trustworthy they are.

2. One I think I could get rid of is AMD's Catalyst Control Center, as well as other AMD services:

atiesrxx.exe - AMD External Events Service Module
atieclxx.exe - AMD External Events Client Module
Fuel.Service.exe - AMD Fuel Service
MOM.exe - Catalyst Control Center: Monitoring Program
CCC.exe - Catalyst Control Center: Host Application

EDIT: Uninstalled my driver and updated to the newest, but didn't install CCC with it, and now only have atiesrxx and atieclxx. According to the utility GPU-Z, Crossfire is still enabled. Current # of processes at idle is 31. I still need to know if atiesrxx and atieclxx are necessary.

Are any of those necessary for Crossfire or anything else important?

3. I'm using Process Explorer and noticed many svchosts have no subprocesses, so what is their purpose?
EDIT: Found out about "tasklist /SVC" command. So if I don't need the services run by the svchost, it will go away.

 

Well, I suppose if you don't care about Aero you could disable dwm.exe (the compositing window manager).

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/what-is-dwmexe-and-why-is-it-running/

 

I find that Black Viper has the best information:

http://www.blackviper.com/

 

I have already done Viper's Tweaked list. I also checked other services I have that were set to automatic, but it doesn't seem I could really disable any of them.

I did however disable the AMD Exernal Events Utility and that took care of the last AMD processes.'

Also TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper, unless you believe that is necessary.

And about BlackViper's list; what's the point of disabling services that are set to manual and will probably never be used?

 

That's a fair point,some folks are quite obsessive about trimming their OS down to the bare minimum.He does offer lists with varying degrees of "stripping" mind.

 

All I can say is you really have to study each process. Research them, see what other people have mentioned about them. And find out if it's necessary or helpful for you. I found that almost all of mine were not. No reason whatsoever to have them running. But do your research first, don't just go in there winging it. Don't make wholesale changes. If you do engage in some trial & error to test things, have an image ready. But on XP at least it won't even let you disable the really vital stuff that would cripple you to turn off. I don't know how 7 works.

Some things even sound important like "Security Accounts Manager", or "Protected Storage"... but I found out you're actually safer with both off when I found out what they really do. Or "Shell Hardware Detection". I never have a problem with my PC detecting stuff with it disabled. So don't assume something's vital because it "sounds important". Some of the labels are misleading. Look them up. Only keep what you need to run a stable/secure system.

 

Thanks to ElectroBytes

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=2056033&postcount=5

 

So far no problems with my changes.

Is it okay I disabled TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper? It sounded unnecessary.

Also, SAM can be disabled on Win 7? And all Shell Hardware Detection does is do AutoPlay (which I find annoying)?

And ComputerSaysNo, that's a little complex and long, but thank you

 

I recognize a lot of that. It's in XP's GP as well. And yeah that's the only thing I ever noticed about SHD too (autoplay). But it can't because of another GP edit (Turn off autoplay).

And yes, disable netbios over tcp/ip. absolutely.

 

Have a go brandon, you will be surprised how rock solid the OS is security wise. That guide + BlackVipers services guide will get you a bare bones config, it will break somethings though I'm just warning you.

 

I'll take ease-of-use over total security like that. I'm pretty confident AppGuard's got my back. I may add EMET again but I remember I removed it before for some reason.

Oh and Font Cache was another service I was wondering about. I noticed there is an svchost that only has Font Cache. I read it should not be disabled as it will cause worse performance in programs.

 

Some other good sites, to determine if a process is necessary or not to run at boot:
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/startups/
http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_search.php
http://www.processlibrary.com/

Try also to avoid that non-security software boots at start up. You need to dig into the options/settings of the programs to be able to prevent the load of the processes.