Windows services safe to disable?

I am seeking a reliable website that lists Windows services and gives guidance as to (a) those services that must not be disabled, no matter what, & (b) those services that can be disabled, no matter what, & (c) those services that might be okay to disable provided that my computer usage meets a specific condition or conditions.

Q-1: Do you know of such a website? If so, I will greatly appreciate knowing its URL.

Q-2: Your opinion -- How useful is it to disable non-essential Windows services? Or is it just a waste of time to seek out more information on this subject?

 

This may be of help. http://www.blackviper.com/service-configurations/

Personally, I don't worry about manually disabling services. I use Advanced SystemCare which does disable some services, but that's all.

 

As I discovered with my battles to stop Windows updates, the services can be triggered by activities, scheduler and is usually from an exe somewhere.

So you can shut down, disable and stop as much as you want, but some are persistent. There isn't much online regarding shutting down services, which I interpret as there not being much of an advantage, unlike the non-windows services which often need to be disabled.

 

Instead of "disable," there is another option *to be on the safe side*. It is to set a service as "on demand". Doing so will let Windows call the service when & IF it ever needs it. This setting used to be called "manual."

@roger_m -- Useful link. 10Q to nth.

Note to whoever: Anvir Task Manager Free (I use the portable version) provides excellent information about each Windows service, its essentiality, its security implications, etc. It also makes tweaking services & other Windows components (startups, etc) very easy to do.

 

I use BlackViper site mentioned by Roger to get more info and recommendations about services.
Disabling some is IMO not waste of time. Let's say Windows search can slow down my system if I let it enabled and actually don't use it. So you can check that site and at least check services that are "safe" to disable.

 

Windows update is a service. Problem is, there is 1 update that Windows calls important -- the Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool. I never install that tool. However, Windows update keeps reminding me about it every time I start up Windows. BUT why should I download a 44MB tool to remove a problem that I do NOT have?

I am tempted to disable the Windows update service to stop the pointless reminders (I always learn about & install patches based on postings here at Wilders).

Q=3: Am I missing something by not downloading that removal tool?

 

No.

 

but it doesn't hurt to install it, i do even i never use it.

 

@bellgamin
if you're on 10, there are only a handful of them safe to disable. windows search (if you don't use it), error reporting and some (not all, careful there) remote services. i assume you already tweaked your os via settings app and cp and disabled telemetry, geo location etc.

 

no, you're not. but i wouldn't recommend messing with the wus and/or its mechanisms just to stop wmsrt installation.

 

I've been using portable Easy Services Optimizer with the tightest options without any problems.
https://www.sordum.org/downloads/?easy-service-optimizer

 

@imdb -- thanks for your comments. Always appreciated!

Ref your post #9 -- I am a Windows 7 Pro hold-out.

Ref your post #10 -- I accede to your counsel regarding not messing with WUS -- it's a minor annoyance to have it bug me so often, but ... life goes on.

Live long & prosper!

 

@bellgamin

thank you & god bless you.

 

Same here!

 

You can set registry key described here and you won't get notifications about MSRT updates and it will not be offered to you again. I've never saw an update for MSRT once I created this registry key.
https://winaero.com/blog/disable-malicious-software-removal-tool/

 

In my experience service tweaking hasn't really been useful with modern OSes. It helped with Windows 98, but with anything still in use today it is likely to cause issues if it does anything at all. To each his own and if anyone perceives a benefit don't let me stop you. Just make notes of what you did so if any issues arise you can review it to help figure out why other things are broken later.

 

+1
I stopped "tweaking" services when I first used Window 7, but I was an excessive/obsessive tweaker in the late 1990s.

 

Intense services tweaking was very useful at the win7 era because of low hardware , not much those days.

 

I would disable only certain "high risk" services, but I have learned my lesson. I once had to reinstall Windows 8 because I disabled too many services, and this broke some stuff that couldn't be fixed anymore.

 

Uhh... you did make an image or a restore point before tweaking, right?

 

No, because I didn't expect that disabling services could break stuff. For example, I couldn't print anything anymore.

 

My condolences. I learned a similar lesson a while ago.

Based on that painful lesson, I always image at least weekly PLUS right before installing complex apps.

 

you must've disabled spooler service.

 

Probably, but even when enabling it, I got all kinds of error messages. And sometimes you can't even re-enable certain services because they were depended on some other service, it was pure hell.

 

i see. sounds like a total mess you had back then.