| It is a surprisingly little known fact that Windows XP runs several dozen "services" in the background during use. Many of these services are necessary for performing tasks such as providing sound and printing. Most of these services, however, are not needed for every session and a great deal are never needed at all. The unfortunate result of this is decreased performance; a decrease many people do not know how to fix. This guide will walk you through the tweaking of Windows XP services, allowing you to eliminate the ones you don't need. |
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Changing your default service configuration can result in system and/or program failure. The following guide is a use-at-your-own-risk venture. I do not guarantee that the following configurations will work on your computer! |
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First, make sure you are logged on as the Administrator or at least have Administrative privileges. If you have never had to log in or out of your computer, have no multiple accounts, or are the only one that uses your computer you are probably already logged in as such. Next, make a copy of your Services registry. The easiest way to do this is to use the Registry Editor tool: 1. Click Start and go to Run 2. Type in regedit and click OK 3. Expand the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE directory a. Expand SYSTEM b. Expand CurrentControlSet 4. Right-click on Services and then left-click on Export to bring up the Save menu 5. Save the Service configuration and don't forget where you put it If you want to restore your service configuration later just double-click on the file and select Yes from the prompt. For further accident coverage create a System Restore checkpoint or, if you are running XP Professional, a full boot-partition backup. Congratulations! Now you are ready to begin tweaking with your services. |
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The Service configuration utility is accessed from the Control Panel under Administrative Tools. Open this menu and double-click on Services. This will open the services menu. The top of the menu has the following listings: Name Description Status Startup Type Log on As Let's examine each one of these individually: • Name - What the service is called. • Description - A brief description of what the service does which is not always much help. • Status - Whether or not the service is currently running; if the service says Started it is currently running. • Startup Type - How the service starts. There are three Startup types: 1. Automatic - The service is automatically loaded automatically when Windows starts. Usually this means it will be Started and active during a session regardless of actual use. 2. Manual - The service will start when requested by the user. This can add a slightly extended loading time for the individual process, but a slightly decreased loading time when Windows starts. Overall, this is best in many cases as it assures you use only what you need. 3. Disabled - This prevents the service from starting even if called upon, which can be useful for security purposes. • Log On As - Describes whether the service is used locally or remotely over a network. The Startup Type is what we are most interested in. Right-click on the name of a service and then left-click on Properties to bring up information on that particular service (see picture below). In the center of the General portion of the menu is the Startup type select menu. To change the way a service starts, simply select Automatic, Manual, or Disabled from this menu and click OK. This will change the way this service begins the next time Windows is loaded. 
Now we're ready to configure your XP services. Click NEXT below to go onto the next page where we will look at each service individually in detail. NEXT TO PAGE TWO A-L NEXT TO PAGE THREE M-V NEXT TO PAGE FOUR W-CONCLUSION |