What services can i kill for entertainment PC?

[Joemonkey]

I finally build a PC that sits in my entertainment center to use as a movie/emu/etc. PC

I installed winxp on it, and realize that all i really care about having is the network connectivity and general ability to run the multimedia aspects.

So, what services can i kill, and how do i do it? as well as how do i make sure they don't keep starting up on reboots?

 

[Woodchuck2000]

Simple Answer - Don't.
99.9% of the time, they'll just sit there quietly in the background. It's far too much hassle trying to kill them selectively and there aren't that many you can kill safely anyway.

If you have a deathwish and you really want to tinker, go into Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Services
Click a service and select stop to stop it.
To disable it permanently, go into the service's property page and set startup type to 'disabled.'

 

[MisterMe]

Yea really - don't. Chances are that if the system you're building is at least semi-late model, it will have plenty of horsepower so you're not going to make any difference in the way the thing works anyway...keep it simple...don't worry about it...

 

[Joemonkey]

actually its just a celly 566 w/ 128MB RAM...

i was trying to keep RAM as free as possible, but i guess like you guys say, since EMU's don't take much (well the damn N64 one is choppy, i already know i just need a new CPU to fix that) and there will be no multitasking going on, i suppose i'll just let it be

 

[igiveup]

I always kill telnet. No need for that thing usually. Telephony is another one, but its not usually running unless its needed (manual startup).

Like the rest of the posters said, its not worth the trouble.

 

[Joemonkey]

looks like i'll be attempting to upgrade it to a 1.3Ghz Duron on a KT7A with 256 MB of RAM, so i suppose i don't have anything to worry about as far as crap running in the background taking up too many resources

thanks for the advice on not killing stuff, i thought XP had a poo load of pointless services running when you installed it (well pointless as far as what that PC is getting used for)

 

[sasa]

Maybe try win2k?
I was very surprized when I installed it on laptop with 96M and 233MHz, and it was even able to run Office 2000!

 

[Fokks]

Here's a decent guide to give you an idea of what the individual services do, along with recommendations for what to change them to depending on your needs.

http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm

Don't be afraid to change them, you're not going to kill your pc playing with services. Just find out what they do first. Then if something you need stops working as a result you can always turn it back on, it's not the end of the world. You will be able to accomplish what you're trying to do, turning off a number of those services will clear up a good chunk of memory. If you're on a pc with a gig of memory, then yeah who cares, but for what you're trying to do every little bit helps.

Hope that helps...

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

why would you recommend against stopping some of them? do people really need a dhcp client on a static network? do people need remote registry administration? etc. there are some services that you don't need, if you don't research enough, and kill one that's important, well...that's your own dumbass fault