Services to disable

Are there any default services in Windows 7 which I can disable to save on resources. An example here is Windows Reporting Service, Windows Firewall & Windows Defender.

 

www.BlackViper.com: Windows 7 Service Configurations

 

Perfect
Thanks

 

Here is what I am using for others using win7 who are average to above average -- meaning they know what services are and can understand what shutting one off does to their system. Perhaps not recommended for everyone, but I have had good success with it so far. You might want to step through it and modify it, because I went fairly heavy with disabling them.

Use this program http://www.p-nand-q.com/download/pserv_cpl.html to quickly change your services. Save the output as an .xml file (make multiple ones, including a default). Then you can play with a 'template' and if you don't like it, import the template that was working or that you like better.

View attachment 7_Services_Tweaks.txt

Sul.

 

Imrpessive stripping of weight. I always limited myself to services which also can be used by malware. Could you provide a second minimal list? (see 1)

I allways thought that having unused services running only spoils Memory space and some CPU for the services monitoring its trigger/API's. DO you notice difference when shutting services so rigoursly.




1) Reason for lazyness
I help my brother in law with his PC, he uses my anti drive-by Registry tweak very neatly, but I have to do bios/driver update for WEI score to finish on latest part of teh disk test, I think seen with speed of BIOS versions came out).


Gr Kees

 

@Sully

I've been disabling uneeded services for several years, thanks to BlackViper and others.

Your TXT list is huge I presume only some of those are actually disabled ?

Which dword = disabled ?

pserv.cpl 2.7 looks useful, and there are a number of other interesting Apps on there too. Thanks for the info

 

Another nice little utility to tweak the Windows7 media before installation is RT Se7en lite,it works on the same principle as nlite/vlite.

http://www.rt7lite.com/

 

Services in Windows 7 were already tweaked by Microsoft to achieve faster startup times.

A notable change: the Windows 7 Service Control Manager has been extended so that a service can be started and stopped automatically when a specific system event, or trigger, occurs on the system. These trigger-start capabilities remove the need for services to start up automatically at computer startup and then poll or wait for an event to occur.

 

Good point! There are far fewer services running default in Win7 as compared to Vista, so really not much need to disable further, although I suppose a few candidates could be found.

 

That text file can be renamed to .reg and used (obviously). It is a lot of work to make those, especially since the service name does not always correspond to the description/title.

Anyway, at the top of it I notated the dword values for you. A high number of them are disabled, but not all. A few of them as I experimented with win7 have a notation of why you might need them.

Sul.

 

Yes, I was looking forward to this. But they did not implement enough of them IMHO. But then again, most people use many of the features that those types of services bring.

Sul.

 

It is very true! Windows 7, with so many services running, is very snappy out of the box. As a matter of fact, if you did nothing, it would probably not be an issue until you had the OS on for a year or two, then you would probably notice it.

I started looking to make the rather slow hdd speeds in win7 to be better for my hardware. I was able to do that, and noticably so.

I turn as much as I can off simply because I see no benefit for myself to have many of them running. If I used my machine as a media center or with a wireless network and had many win7 machines in the house, I might leave more of them on. But being a minimalist, it seems like such a waste. Some old habits just won't die.

Sul.

 

Especially with XP it's easy to disable many services. I've got two in the household running only 19 (from ~ 30+). TBH, though, it's not the speed saving difference I'd hoped for, affording only a perceptibly small speed increase.

 

The best

 

@Sully

Hi, I realised the Text file can be renamed to .reg and used. When i said Your TXT list is huge, i meant Win7 has a LOT of services listed in there

Who would have thought the dword answer was right at the top

Thanks

 

Not really a need to with Vista and Win7. Default services are optimal for standard use.

You know a lot of services that are set for automatic, even though they show that, they're not running all the time, they come on only when needed.

I used the blackviper site to help lean down 2k and 2k3 server for running public game servers, because many of those default services are not needed by a gaming server, and disabling many of them actually make it more secure..when you have a public facing game server.

But with Vista and Win7....default settings are fine. Killing services...you seriously won't see a difference, if you do...it's a placebo. People worry about RAM use on Vista and Win7...you bought that RAM, why not get your moneys worth? If you're not using your RAM, you went and wasted your money. Higher memory usage than XP..that's superfetch doing its job.

 

Not a blanket statement there.. there are measurable differences. It all depends on what you disable.

That is true, if you have 4gb RAM, why not use it. But this is exactly why I don't use x64 nor feel the need to in the immediate future. I cannot use what I have right now, so how is x64 going to benefit me either?

Superfetch is one of the things that I shut off and see a noticable difference. (but I was turning services off that slow down already slow hdd read/writes)

I don't think you can feel the differences much if you use the OS like M$ intended most home users to. I mean, with media player streaming stuff and all the 'automatic' stuff the OS wants to do now, just how many services can you disable and still have the type of functionality you want?

@Stonecat, I pretty much agree, most people probably won't really be able to quantify the difference. But why have a service running you don't use, and why have it set to automatic if you don't use it? My opinion is that if I shut down now what I don't need, if there ever is an exploit, it is a mute point. If it is not disabled, I will have to wait for a patch to fix it, or I will have to stay on top of what the latest exploits are. I see services, especially those holding ports open, as one of the weakest links, thus I choose to be proactive in managing them.

Sul.