Windows XP: List of Services can be Disabled to Increase Speed

XP has a ton of services enabled by default. By knowing what these services do (or don’t do), you can really speed up your system by disabling the ones you don’t need.

Many services can be modified to increase the speed of your system. If you take a CPU = air conditioner analogy.If you use your A/C during the summer, it’s helpful. If you use it during the winter, it’s a waste. Here is my suggestions for the settings of the services:

If you ever find something not working correctly, you should reset it. However, these are the services that I disable. This guide is very conservative. Many of these services are activated even though only the minority of users will need them. I describe the use of these services so you can make a decision if you should have it enabled or not.

How to Access Your Microsoft Services:

1. Click Start
2. Click Settings
3. Select Control Panel
4. Double click Administrative Tools
5. Double click Services
6. Scroll down and highlight the service you want to adjust
7. Right-click on it and choose Properties
8. Click the stop button.
9. Select Disable or Manual in the Startup Type scroll bar.

Services to Disable:

1. Smart Card / Smart Card Helper – If you don’t have a smart card system, you don’t need this service. As smart cards have really never taken off… i doubt you need this. Kill it.
2. TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper service – Unless you run NetBIOS on your system, you don’t need this service. Kill it.
3. Uninterruptible Power Supply – Although I should have a UPS, I don’t. If you don’t, then disable this service.
4. Remote Registry service – This service allows one to remotely edit the registry through a network connection. If you are editing your registry remotely, then you are too jedi-ninja to be reading this guide. The rest of us should have this off for security alone.
5. Error Reporting Service – A program crashes and microsoft wants to know about it. Give up your extra CPU cycles to help Gates polish his OS, or you can just disable it.
6. Wireless Zero Configuration - Unless you use wi-fi, you can safely stop this service. If you use wi-fi, this is actually a nice little service.
7. Alerter – This is so useless SP2 turns this off for you. For the rest of you folks, you should turn it off too.
8. Clipbook – This service allows you to cut and paste across your private network. Most programs that actually allow you to do this use their own ways for doing this.Useless.Stop it.
9. Computer Browser – If you are on a LAN, keep it enabled. If not, stop it. It allows you to see the other computers on your network.
10. FastUser Switching Compatibility – If you keep multiple users/logins on your current computer, you should leave this enabled. If you always log-in the same way as the same person, you should disable this.
11. Messenger Service – Kill it, kill it. We’ve been saying to kill this forever.
12. NetMeeting Remote Desktop Sharing Service – If you don’t use NetMeeting, you should stop this service.
13. Network DDE/Network DDE DSDM – DDE DSDM was an excellent idea by Microsoft that flopped. Disable both of these.
14. Remote Desktop Help Session Manager Service – I use remote desktop all the time. However, you should not have it enabled unless you use it.
15. Telnet Service – This allows you to use telnet to log into your system from a remote location. It’s a security risk so don’t keep it enabled unless you use it.SP2 disables it by default now.

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