Which proccesses are neccessary?

[specWB]

I have 61 processes running at any given time in the background. I was wonering which ones it would be OK for me to stop, and how to stop tyhem permanantly. The links below are to pictures showing my running proccesses.
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I know this kind of question has probably been posted vefore but i would think it would be different for each person since each person would have different proccesses. Thanks
And be careful if you have 56k clicking those links.

 

[WildHorse]

specWB,

There are lots of different guides free on the web that give suggestions about how to improve computer speediness by shutting down background services & editing the registry. If you read a few of them you'll quickly discover they don't agree with each other.

On a Windows XP Pro SP2 computer that's pretty heavily loaded with plenty of heavy duty software, I have a total of 20 background processes running. So your "61 processes running" does sound like a lot.

Here are a few samples of performance tweaking advice, but there're tons more:
Tweakhound
Registry Guide for Windows
Tweakguides Tweaking Companion Regular Edition

You can't just copy someone else's ways, because what you run or disable depends on your circumstances.

For example, in the area of "Services" hardly any on my main desktop computer are set to "automatic", they're mostly on "manual", and I disable the following ones outright (plus I put in a lot of tweaks in other areas besides services to help make it go F A S T !)
Application Layer Gateway
ASP.NET State Service
Clipbook
Computer browser
Error Reporting Service
IMAPI CD-Burning COM Service
Indexing Service
Infrared Monitor
Net Logon
Net.Tcp Port Sharing Service
NetMeeting Remote Desktop Sharing
Network Location Awareness (NLA)
Performance Logs and Alerts
Portable Media Serial Number Service
QoS RSVP
Remote Desktop Help Session Manager
Remote Registry
Routing and Remote Access
Smart Card
SQL Server Active Directory Helper
SQL Server Browser
SSDP Discovery Service
TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper
Telnet
Terminal Services
Themes
Uninterruptible Power Supply
Universal Plug and Play Device Host
Volume Shadow Copy
WebClient
Wireless Zero Configuration
WMI Performance Adapter

For the examples you gave, you could shut off the MDM (Microsoft machine debug manager), the cftmon.exe (Microsoft Office thing in case you want to do input by voice recognition, not today thank you, I don't know about that ccProxy thing you've got, why run that?, you don't really need the ati2 stuff (2 entries), etc. You can Google the ones you don't understand & see what they are. There are plenty of guides listing the mysterious designations like cftmon.exe * telling what they are.

Be CAREFUL specWB! Remember that....Careful!

edit: link fixed

 

[specWB]

Thanks. I use my computer for gameing, surfing the web, listening to music,watching movies, and doing Microsoft Office projects. I know you said you couldnt just base it on what another person does, but would it be safe for me to disable all of those that you listed, like are those the kinds of things most people would stop? Also is there a way to tell things you would need based on the file location show in the MSCONFIG? Same question for the startup option, i would bet that is i disabled alot of the start up proccesses, it would start much faster. I have only disabled one start up process previously and that was iTuneshelper.exe or something like that and i though that probably wasnt neccassary for my computer to run weel and stably. Also, i dont know if you noticed in the pictures in the links i posted, but some processes show up more than once. specifically that i noticed on first glance CLI.exe and svchost.exe. The latter shows up seven times and i have to imagine it would be fine running just one but i havnt disabled it yet just to be safe.Thanks again.

 

[sieistganzfett]

i honestly go 99% by only msconfig's startup tab. uncheck everything in it but the things that are norton, symantec, or begin with 'cc' (which is also norton's anti virus) if you dont know what an item is, google the name of it, or the location it is in, etc. to find out what it is, then decide if its important to you, if so, enable it then. thats the only way you will know only what you need or want loads. everyone's "preferences" is different.

 

[WildHorse]

Originally posted by: specWB
Thanks. I use my computer for gameing, surfing the web, listening to music,watching movies, and doing Microsoft Office projects. I know you said you couldnt just base it on what another person does, but would it be safe for me to disable all of those that you listed, like are those the kinds of things most people would stop? Also is there a way to tell things you would need based on the file location show in the MSCONFIG? Same question for the startup option, i would bet that is i disabled alot of the start up proccesses, it would start much faster. I have only disabled one start up process previously and that was iTuneshelper.exe or something like that and i though that probably wasnt neccassary for my computer to run weel and stably. Also, i dont know if you noticed in the pictures in the links i posted, but some processes show up more than once. specifically that i noticed on first glance CLI.exe and svchost.exe. The latter shows up seven times and i have to imagine it would be fine running just one but i havnt disabled it yet just to be safe.Thanks again.

specWB
Go read this (the free regular edition), starting on its Page 87. You've got to put forth a little effort to do some studying on the subject, so that you understand what it is you're doing.

Again, BE CAREFUL, and when dealing with Services (Start / Run / services.msc ENTER) click on a service and its "Properties" then "Dependencies" tab.

Like Bukaroo Bonzai said, careful what you pull on because there's no telling what it might be connected to!

In other words, if you stop some service, you could unintentionally mess up others that depend upon it. Good luck & happy reading!

 

[PurePeon]

It's probably best to leave the system ones running and worry about the ones running under your username. Looks like you have lots of junk running.

 

[PurePeon]

don't disable svchost.exe cause it runs under more then 1 instance.

check out process explorer nt on sysinternals. Looks like Microsoft bought them.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysint...ocessesAndThreads/ProcessExplorer.mspx

it shows what processes depend on what. and what you can probably get rid of.

 

[law9933]

Hi, Maybe this would be useful (Black Viper). I used SAFE list & no problems.
http://majorgeeks.com/page.php?id=12 also click on "also available for download" & read
All of Pro's services are not in XP Home. Les

 

[WildHorse]

specWB,
Look through the tweaking ideas here:
msfn.org/articles

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=1100

And this site has a cool feature that makes a registry tweak FOR YOU AUTOMATICALLY. ALl you do is check the boxes to select your choices, copy into Notepad, save as "tweak.reg" WITH the quotes, and run it. It dowes aeverything for you, safely. HERE