Disable System Services?

I ran across Black Viper years ago while using Windows XP. He had a list of Services that could be disabled. I used it and had no problems. Am wondering what those of you who have more knowledge than I, think of his list for Windows 8.1.
» Black Viper?s Windows 8.1 Service Configurations

I would leave service configuration on default. Performance gains will be nill while the risks of breaking important functionality are much higher. There is no complete description of what each service does anywhere. Many do more than in the provided documentation.

There's Dependencies tab for each service but it can go thru a long chain one depending to other and than than one on another.... etc. Win8 has many more "start and demand" services that shut down when not necessary than Win 7, Unless some are in the way it's better not to turn them off.

Black Viper is pretty basic. Those are only services, that I have running, the rest is disabled.

And as Lmiller7 said above the performance gain will be zero.

I've been doing this Windows thing now for nearly 30 years. In the earlier days, you could gain a lot of performance by turning things off and tweaking. However, since the days of XP, I honestly haven't been able to prove to myself (with a stopwatch), any performance gains by tweaking and disabling services. In fact, I've found the opposite to be true that after you turn off a few things and watch the stopwatch the system actually gets slower. Sure, maybe I have 120k of extra memory free, but if it takes 3 seconds longer to boot the system and launch my first application and I have 6GB of RAM free, who cares about the 120k of memory that I gained back by disabling something else.

So, what do I tweak and disable? Absolutely nothing.

The best advice for system performance, install and experiment with everything in a virtual machine. Only commit to installing things that you will use day in and day out on your host computer. This way you don't have clutter, extra registry stuff and heaven forbid the sneaky software that gets installed with a lot of the freebie stuff today that we all love to use.

pparks1 said:

I've been doing this Windows thing now for nearly 30 years. In the earlier days, you could gain a lot of performance by turning things off and tweaking. However, since the days of XP, I honestly haven't been able to prove to myself (with a stopwatch), any performance gains by tweaking and disabling services. In fact, I've found the opposite to be true that after you turn off a few things and watch the stopwatch the system actually gets slower. Sure, maybe I have 120k of extra memory free, but if it takes 3 seconds longer to boot the system and launch my first application and I have 6GB of RAM free, who cares about the 120k of memory that I gained back by disabling something else.

Click to expand...

That's very true. What most of those "Miracle performance boost" programs primarily do is to turn off some services and shut down programs not needed at time a game is running but has been proven by benchmark programs that system can even slow down let alone speed up after such "treatment". Windows itself might not need all the services running but some programs might need them.

There's Dependencies tab for each service but it can go thru a long chain one depending to other and than than one on another.... etc.

Click to expand...

This tells you only about service dependencies. It tells you nothing at all about what what other Windows components and applications may rely on a specific service. You won't find this documented anywhere.

What do you hope to gain by disabling services? People see how many services are "running" and conclude that this must have a serious impact on performance. This has been claimed on many websites. But without a measurement of CPU time consumed this is meaningless. In my experience the CPU usage of all processes hosting services is well under 1% of the total. And that includes all services, including those associated with AV software. The memory saved by disabling services is very difficult to measure in a meaningful way.

What you quoted is just what I was saying, services can be connected in a chain so disabling any in that chain or ones with any dependencies can affect much more than only that one. The impact on system speed as a whole is minimal but consequences of wrong one can be dear.
In previous Windows I used to disable some services routinely, like for instance Fax, Smart card etc. and some for security like remote registry but have noticed as windows started getting better that most of that stuff was either disabled or set to manual anyway. So, right now I haven't disabled anything myself, it's all at stock.

Right now the only things I've disabled is bluetooth (don't use it, no need for it) and ipod service. Don't have an ipod, therefore don't need it. This computer has wireless capabilities, that I also disabled. I don't use wireless, also have wireless shut off in the router. Read (years ago) how someone could mess you up by connecting to Server and Computer Browser. Both of those I had disabled in XP. There was a website (I think it was GRC's Shields Up) that when you run it, it would attempt to connect to Server. Gave you flying colors if it couldn't connect.

I'm not looking to boost performance or bootup time. I'm looking at increasing security. This is a stand alone computer. I don't have a laptop or tablet. So, no need for being able to connect another device and browsing files. No need for a 'network' printer.

In that case you should disable all or some of services that start with "Remote".

Hi there. Wouldn't it be better to uninstall unneeded items in Device Manager first, then tweak Services?

BTW, if a service is not needed, it won't run even if it's listed. Yes?

HippsieGypsie said:

Hi there. Wouldn't it be better to uninstall unneeded items in Device Manager first, then tweak Services?

BTW, if a service is not needed, it won't run even if it's listed. Yes?

Click to expand...

Only "Manual" and "Manual (Trigger Start)", "Automatic" and "Automatic (Delayed Start)" start at Boot time and run all the time.
"Manual" can be triggered by a program and "Trigger Start" is reserved or Windows use. So anything except Disabled can be started some way.
Disabled ones you can not start until its set to manual or auto.

Thanks for that, Count. :thumb:

HippsieGypsie said:

Thanks for that, Count. :thumb:

Click to expand...

I've been fighting services since they invented them. At first they were great security risk.

CountMike said:

In that case you should disable all or some of services that start with "Remote".

Click to expand...

Not real sure just what all of them do. So I left them as is. Only one I did disable was Remote Registry.