essential processes that Win xp needs

  • Thread starter Thread starter remick2
  • Start date Start date
R

remick2

How can I find out which essential processes that Windows XP needs to
operate properly.
I am attempting to turn off all Background Tasks.
Thanks,
Rosalie
 
Services Guide for Windows XP
http://www.theeldergeek.com/services_guide.htm


--
Nicholas

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| How can I find out which essential processes that Windows XP needs to
| operate properly.
| I am attempting to turn off all Background Tasks.
| Thanks,
| Rosalie
|
|
 
from the wonderful said:
How can I find out which essential processes that Windows XP needs to
operate properly.
I am attempting to turn off all Background Tasks.
Click to expand...

I'm tempted to ask 'why' .. most of them don't do anything unless
required, or unless the machine is idle. The right answer depends on
whether the machine is on a network or not, and what you plan to use it
for, but there is a (slightly dangerous) list of services you can
disable (and how to do so) at
http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm

It's worth disabling content indexing service, messenger service, uPnP,
SSDP discovery service. Whether you want to take out system restore, and
some of the network stuff, depends on what you plan to do with the PC.
Disabling these services saves some memory, but not much else (and in a
few cases, plugs potential security holes .. remote registry editing,
for instance).

Note - these are all =services=. As far as tasks goes, WinXP should run
just fine with nothing being loaded at startup, although the same cannot
be said for your virus scanner, display manager, sound controller, etc.
 
remick2 said:
How can I find out which essential processes that Windows XP needs to
operate properly.
I am attempting to turn off all Background Tasks.
Click to expand...

Unless you are very clear indeed about the purpose of a Process, leave
it alone. Do not try to cut down on Background tasks simply for
Uninstalls.

You can check in Control Panel - Admin Tools - Services for services
that are started, and check the descriptions - a few probably can be set
as Manual startup without harm, unless you are on a network:

'Background Intelligent Transfer' and 'Routing and Remote Access' are
two that seem to have been implicated in heavy CPU use in the past

Alerter

Indexing Service (unless you want all Office documents indexed for
faster searches on basis of contents)

Messenger (this is *not* the Instant Messaging program)

Performance Logs

QoS RSVP
(disabling this is not necessary, despite some 'street wisdom'., but is
probably doing nothing useful)

and unless you go through a router that supports Net address translation
(NAT) the pair
SSDP Discovery
Universal Plug and play

Anything else that could usefully be set as Manual probably is already
anyway

And you can check on other things loading at start by a run of
MSConfig.exe and look in Startup - things like Control panel extensions
and taskbar icons for printers/grahics cards/ sound cards/mice for
example
 
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