You will have to do a bit of research and decide for yourself what you
want or need to have running for your particular use of the computer.
Do a seach on the internet for the running processes and find out what
they are for. These sites have good information on a number of processes:
Answers That Work - Task List Programs
http://www.answersthatwork.com/Tasklist_pages/tasklist.htm
BlackViper.com: Windows 2000 Professional and Server Service Pack 4
Services Configuration
http://www.blackviper.com/WIN2K/servicecfg.htm
Services Guide for Windows XP
http://www.theeldergeek.com/services_guide.htm
(Written for Windows XP but much of what is there also applies to
Windows 2000)
RunScanner Process List
(Search the Database)
http://www.runscanner.net/Processlist.aspx
Startup Applications List
http://www.sysinfo.org/startuplist.php
There are six critical NT system services, Windows 2000 needs these
services to start and run porperly. Trying to kill these critical
services will end the Windows session:
- Csrss.exe (Client/Server Runtime Server Subsystem)
- Lsass.exe (Local Security Authority Subsystem Service)
- Smss.exe (Session Manager Subsystem)
- Winlogon.exe (Windows logon process)
- services.exe (Windows Service Controller)
- RpcSs (Remote Procedure Call Server Service)*
* Runs inside one of the SVChost.exe. RpcSs is not critical in its own
right but hardly anything runs without it.
These are the 6 critical NT processes, without these 6 items things
don't work too well! Along with that the Task Manager would show:
- System (the kernel or kernel-mode threads)
- System Idle Process (Not a process or service but a single thread that
runs on each processor, its sole task is to account for processor idle
time or time spent doing nothing.)
There you have it, the minimum 8 items that will or should always show
in the Task Manager, add the Task Manager itself to the list and it will
give you 9 processes.
John
