Disable unused services to speed up Windows. What Windows services can be disabled to speed up the system? Disable background processes in windows 8.1

Firstly, it is worth saying that disabling some system services on the Windows 8 operating system does not always lead to improved computer performance. In most cases, changes in the operation of system services are simply unnoticeable, and in addition, it is necessary to remember that a service once disabled may be needed in the future. That is why you should not forget which services were disabled and which were not.

Finding and disabling system services

To change services and view them, you need to display a special menu, which is called using the services.msc command. This command must be entered into the “Run” menu, which is called up by pressing the Win + R key combination. You can do it a little differently. To do this, you will have to go to the “Control Panel”, open the “Administration” folder and select “Services”. After clicking, a whole list of various services installed on the user’s personal computer will appear.

If you want to learn more about a particular service, then double-click on it with the left mouse button or right-click to open the “Properties” menu. Here you can learn more specifically about the purpose of any service, as well as how to launch it. It is worth noting that for some services it is impossible to select the startup type.

To optimize your personal computer, you can safely disable the following services: It is better to disable the remote registry, as this can have a positive impact on security; smart card - if you do not use it; if you have and you do not use printing; you can disable the server service if the computer is not connected to the local network and is not used as a server; only when your computer is not using the network; homegroup provider - if the computer is not on a work or home network, then this service can also be disabled; secondary login; NetBIOS support module via TCP/IP (if the computer is not on a work network); security center; Tablet PC input service; Windows Media Center Scheduler Service; The theme service can only be disabled if you are using the classic theme of the operating system; secure storage; the BitLocker drive encryption service can be disabled if you have no idea what it is and do not use this service; Bluetooth, of course, if you don’t have the appropriate adapter, you can turn it off; Windows Search Portable Device Enumeration Service (if you don't use Windows Search); Remote Desktop Services, if you do not connect to your desktop remotely, you can also disable it; Fax, respectively, if it is not available; Windows archiving - if you don’t use it and don’t know why it’s needed, you can disable it. You can also disable Windows Update, but only if you already disable Windows updates.

All of the services listed can affect the performance of your computer, but you should understand that you do everything at your own peril and risk.

Hello.

Most Windows OS users are rarely satisfied with the speed of its operation, especially after some time after installing it on disk. So it was with me: the “brand new” Windows 8 OS worked quite quickly for the first month, but then the well-known symptoms - folders no longer open so quickly, the computer takes a long time to turn on, “brakes” often appear, seemingly out of the blue...

In this article (the article will be in 2 parts ()) we will touch on the initial setup of Windows 8, and in the second we will optimize it for maximum acceleration using various software.

And so, part one...

1) Disabling “unnecessary” services

By default, after installing Windows OS, services are running that most users do not need. For example, why does a user need a print manager if he does not have a printer? In fact, there are quite a lot of such examples. Therefore, let's try to disable services that most people do not need (naturally, it’s up to you to decide whether you need this or that service, that is, Windows 8 will be optimized for a specific user).

Attention! It is not recommended to disable services all at once and at random! In general, if you haven’t dealt with this before, I recommend starting Windows optimization with the next step (and returning to this after everything else has been done). Many users unknowingly disable services randomly, causing Windows to become unstable...

To start, you need to go to services. To do this: open the OS control panel, and then type “services” into the search. Next, select “view local services”. See fig. 1.

Now, how to disable this or that service?

1. Select one or another service from the list and double-click on it with the left mouse button (see Fig. 2).

2. In the window that appears: first click the “stop” button, and then select the startup type (if the service is not needed at all, just select “do not start” from the list).

List of services that can be disabled* (alphabetically):

1) Windows Search (Search Service).

A fairly “hungry” service that indexes your content. If you do not use search, it is recommended to disable it.

2) Offline files

The Offline Files service performs the work of maintaining the Offline Files cache, responds to user logon and logout events, implements the properties of common APIs, and sends events that interest them to those interested in the operation of Offline Files and changes in cache state.

3) IP Ancillary Service

Provides tunnel connectivity using tunneling technologies for IP version 6 (6to4, ISATAP, proxy and Teredo ports), as well as IP-HTTPS. If you stop this service, your computer will not be able to take advantage of the advanced connectivity features that these technologies provide.

4) Secondary login

Allows you to run processes as another user. If this service is stopped, this type of user registration is not available. If this service is disabled, other services that explicitly depend on it cannot start.

5) Print Manager (If you don't have a printer)

This service allows you to queue print jobs and communicate with the printer. If you turn it off, you won't be able to print or see your printers.

6) Client for tracking changed connections

Supports links between NTFS files moved within a computer or between computers on a network.

7) NetBIOS support module over TCP/IP

Provides support for NetBIOS through the TCP/IP service (NetBT) and NetBIOS name resolution for clients on the network, allowing users to share files, printers, and connect to the network. If this service is stopped, these features may not be available. If this service is disabled, all services that explicitly depend on it will fail to start.

Provides support for file, printer, and named pipe sharing for a given computer over a network connection. If the service is stopped, such functions cannot be performed. If this service is not allowed, any explicitly dependent services will fail to start.

9) Windows Time Service

Controls date and time synchronization across all clients and servers on the network. If this service is stopped, date and time synchronization will not be available. If this service is disabled, any services that explicitly depend on it cannot start.

10) Windows Image Upload Service (WIA)

Provides services for acquiring images from scanners and digital cameras.

11) Portable Device Enumerator Service

Applies Group Policy to removable storage devices. Allows applications such as Windows Media Player and Picture Import Wizard to transfer and synchronize content when using removable storage devices.

12) Diagnostic Policy Service

The Diagnostic Policy Service helps you detect problems, troubleshoot problems, and resolve issues related to the operation of Windows components. If you stop this service, diagnostics will not work.

13) Program Compatibility Assistant Service

Provides support for the Program Compatibility Assistant. It monitors programs that a user installs and runs and detects known compatibility issues. If you stop this service, the Program Compatibility Assistant will not work correctly.

14) Windows Error Logging Service

Allows the sending of error reports if the program stops working or hangs, and also allows the delivery of available solutions to problems. Also allows logging for diagnostic and recovery services. If this service is stopped, error reporting may not work and results from the Diagnostic and Recovery Services may not be displayed.

15) Remote registry

Allows remote users to change registry settings on this computer. If this service is stopped, the registry can only be modified by local users running on this computer. If this service is disabled, any services that explicitly depend on it cannot start.

16) Security Center

The WSCSVC (Windows Security Center) service monitors and logs security health settings. These settings include the status of Firewall (on or off), Antivirus (on/off/outdated), Antispyware (on/off/outdated), Windows Update (automatic or manual download and installation of updates), User Account Control (on or off) and Internet settings (recommended or other than recommended).

2) Removing programs from startup

A serious reason for the “brakes” of Windows 8 (and indeed any other OS) can be the startup of programs: i.e. those programs that are automatically loaded (and launched) along with the OS itself.

Many people, for example, launch a bunch of programs every time: torrent clients, reading programs, video editors, browsers, etc. Moreover, interestingly, 90 percent of this entire set will be used from one occasion to another. The question is, why are they all needed every time you turn on the PC?

By the way, by optimizing startup, you can achieve faster startup of your PC, as well as improve its performance.

The fastest way to open startup programs in Windows 8- press the key combination “Cntrl+Shift+Esc” (i.e. through the task manager).

Then, in the window that appears, simply select the ““ tab.

Rice. 4. Task Manager.

To disable a program, simply select it in the list and click on the “disable” button (bottom, right).

Thus, by disabling all programs that you rarely use, you can significantly increase the speed of your computer: applications will not load your RAM and load the processor with useless work...

(By the way, if you disable even all applications from the list, the OS will still boot and work in normal mode. Tested from personal experience (repeatedly)).

3) OS settings: theme, Aero, etc.

It's no secret that, compared to Winows XP, the new Windows 7, 8 operating systems are more demanding of system resources, and this is largely due to the newfangled “design”, all sorts of effects, Aero, etc. For many users, this is overkill and not need to. Moreover, by disabling it, you can increase (albeit not much) performance.

The easiest way to turn off the newfangled "things" is to install the classic theme. There are hundreds of such topics on the Internet, including for Windows 8.

(unless you want to change the topic).

In order to slightly optimize the speed of Windows, you can disable unnecessary services, but the question arises: which services can be disabled? It is this question that I will try to answer in this article.

I note that disabling Windows services will not necessarily lead to any significant improvement in system performance: often the changes are simply unnoticeable. Another important point: perhaps in the future one of the disabled services may turn out to be necessary, so do not forget about which ones you disabled.

How to disable Windows services

To display a list of services, press the Win + R keys on your keyboard and enter the command services.msc, press Enter. You can also go to the Windows Control Panel, open the Administrative Tools folder and select Services. Don't use msconfig.

To change the parameters of a particular service, double-click on it (you can right-click and select “Properties” and set the necessary startup parameters. For Windows system services, a list of which will be given below, I recommend setting the Startup type to “Manual” rather than “ Disabled" In this case, the service will not start automatically, but if required for the operation of any program, it will be launched.

Note: You perform all actions at your own responsibility.

List of services that can be disabled in Windows 7 to speed up your computer


It is safe to disable the following Windows 7 services (enable manual startup) in order to optimize system performance:

  • Remote registry (it’s even better to disable it, this can have a positive effect on security)
  • Smart card - can be disabled
  • Print Manager (if you don't have a printer and aren't printing to files)
  • Server (if the computer is not connected to the local network)
  • Computer browser (if your computer is offline)
  • Homegroup Provider - If your computer is not on your work or home network, you can disable this service.
  • Secondary login
  • NetBIOS support module over TCP/IP (if the computer is not on a work network)
  • Security Center
  • Tablet PC input service
  • Windows Media Center Scheduler Service
  • Themes (if you are using the classic Windows theme)
  • Secure storage
  • BitLocker Drive Encryption Service - If you don't know what it is, you don't need it.
  • Bluetooth Support - If your computer doesn't have Bluetooth, you can turn it off
  • Portable Device Enumerator Service
  • Windows Search (if you don't use the search feature in Windows 7)
  • Remote Desktop Services - You can also disable this service if you don't use
  • Windows Backup - if you don’t use it and don’t know why it’s needed, you can turn it off.
  • Windows Update - can only be disabled if you have already disabled Windows updates.

In addition to this, programs that you install on your computer can also add their own services and run them. Some of these services are needed - antivirus, utility software. Some others - not so much, in particular this applies to update services, which are usually called Program_Name + Update Service. For a browser, Adobe Flash or antivirus, updates are important, but, for example, for DaemonTools and other application programs - not so much. These services can also be disabled, this applies equally to Windows 7 and Windows 8.

Services that can be safely disabled in Windows 8 and 8.1


In addition to the services listed above, to optimize system performance, the following system services can be safely disabled in Windows 8 and 8.1:

  • BranchCache - just disable
  • Client for tracking changed connections - similar
  • Family Safety - If you don't use Windows 8 Family Safety, you can disable this service
  • All Hyper-V services - provided you are not using Hyper-V virtual machines
  • Microsoft iSCSI Initiator Service
  • Windows Biometric Service

As I said, disabling services will not necessarily make your computer noticeably faster. You should also take into account that disabling some services may cause problems in the operation of any third-party program that uses this service.

More information about disabling Windows services

In addition to everything that has been listed, I would like to draw your attention to the following points:

  • Windows service settings are global, meaning they apply to all users.
  • After changing (disabling and enabling) service settings, restart your computer.
  • It is not recommended to use msconfig to change Windows service settings.
  • If you are not sure whether to disable a service, set the startup type to Manual.

Well, it seems that this is all I can tell you about which services to disable and not regret about it.

Greetings friends! I want to tell you an interesting story about Task Manager in Windows 8. A few days ago I was asked to look at a laptop with eight installed, the fact is that the operating system on it was terribly slow, and this despite the presence of the most modern quad-core processor and 6 GB of RAM. The problem was solved very quickly with the help of a regular task manager, I must say that it has changed greatly in the latest operating system from Microsoft, it has become more detailed and useful, and I decided to write a separate article about it.

Task Manager in Windows 8

The owners of the laptop could not understand what was going on. The laptop began to slow down and freeze, seemingly for no reason. Sometimes this was observed when working on the Internet (web pages opened slowly), and sometimes when working in regular office applications (opening and saving a document took an endlessly long time).

I received this laptop in the evening and for a long time I struggled with the desire to put it all off until tomorrow. Okay - I thought, now I’ll turn it on and at least look at the task manager, maybe I’ll be able to immediately find the cause of the freezes and slowdowns. It booted up quickly and worked so quickly that I couldn’t even believe that this laptop could slow down. Right-clicking on the taskbar, I selected Task Manager.

At first glance, there was nothing criminal, running applications and background processes practically did not load the processor, and memory was not particularly consumed either. There were no suspicious or, most importantly, unfamiliar processes observed. We can say that in the Windows 8 task manager there were no signs of trouble, the CPU load was 4%, the memory load was 7%, and .

Note: Task Manager in Windows 8 shows all running programs and processes. With its help, you can easily stop any process and find out the location of the file to which the process belongs. The task manager can give any program you select a High priority and you will allow it to consume a large amount of processor resources, or you can, on the contrary, take away these resources by assigning it a Low priority. Using the task manager, you can find out the results of processor performance, RAM, disk communication speed and network connection, and much more. Everything is presented in the form of a clear graph.

You can launch the task manager in several ways, for example, by using the keyboard shortcut CTRL+SHIFT+ESC or another Ctrl+Alt+Del, or by clicking on the taskbar and selecting "Task Manager" from the menu. I left the task manager and decided to check Windows 8, but before I had time to download it, my attention was drawn to the icon on the taskbar (of a very good installed program (), it showed the processor load at 64%.

Why would this happen all of a sudden - I thought and opened the task manager again and, sure enough, the processor load was already 72% and the Kaspersky Security Scan process called it, gobbled up this process and half of the available memory.

A fairly good anti-virus scanner from Kaspersky Lab (we have written an article about it), it is not designed to remove viruses, but only to diagnose your computer; after a full scan, it displays a detailed report on all the vulnerabilities of your operating system. When installed on a computer, it goes into startup and can launch its process in the future. So after working with this scanner, remove it from your computer.
Right-clicking on the process, I selected “Open file location” in the Windows 8 task manager menu, the personal program folder C:\Program Files (x86)\Kaspersky Lab\Kaspersky Security Scan 2.0 opened, that is, everything is correct.

I decided to stop this process and remove the program. Right-clicking on the process, I selected “End task” from the menu.

The process was completed, the program no longer worked, after which I successfully deleted it through the “Delete or change a program” panel. The laptop no longer slowed down and I safely returned it to its owners.

So, friends, it is not necessary to resort to exotic solutions to solve certain problems, but you can successfully use the tools built into Windows 8, for example, a simple task manager.
I suggest you consider all the possibilities that the updated task manager in Windows 8 offers us. Let's start with the first tab. Processes
We have already become familiar with this tab. It contains information about all running applications and processes. The percentage indicates how much each application or process consumes processor resources, memory, disk space and network.

You already know how to shut down any application or process. You can also select the “Details” menu item and you will be taken to the “Details” tab, where you can see the service of the process you are interested in.

Performance

Shows results of processor performance, RAM, disk communication speed and network connection. Everything is presented in the form of a clear graph.

Application log
You can see how much time each application consumed processor resources and how intensively it occupied network bandwidth.

A useful tab, with it you can see applications that launch along with the operating system. If you want to disable any application from startup, right-click on it and select “Disable.” But I want to say that it looks rather pale compared to the same AnVir Task Manager startup monitor.

Users
In this tab you can see all the users in the system and the processor, memory, disk space, and network resources they consume. Click on the arrow and see all applications opened by this user. If you are a computer administrator, you can disconnect any user by right-clicking on it and selecting disconnect.

Details

A very interesting tab. Any application in Windows 8 has its priority most often “Normal”, so you can change the current state of affairs. For example, you are working in the TeamViewer program, right-click on it, then “Set priority” and we can select any other priority for this
Real time
High
Above average
Ordinary
Average
Below the average
Short

By assigning "High Priority" to any selected program, you will allow it to consume a large amount of processor resources, the program will run most functionally and without glitches.
Separately, I would like to note the first point of Real Time; by assigning this priority to the program, you will allow it to use the maximum amount of processor resources. I advise you not to do this unless necessary.
I think it would be superfluous to tell you about other priorities, since this is most likely understandable. Services
Many readers often ask how to get into Windows 8 services. This can easily be done using the same Windows 8 task manager. In addition, right in the manager window you can start, stop or start the service you are interested in. By selecting the "Details" item in the menu, you will go to the "Details" tab

this is: services.msc, and I will also say that there are quite a lot of them (services), and not all of them are necessary. But I think everyone knows that the more services are enabled, the slower the system boots, and the more RAM is used.
In this article, let's figure out which services can be disabled first without damaging the system's performance:

First, launch the window for managing services: Press the key combination Win + R, in the window that appears, enter the command services.msc

A list of all system services opens.

We select the obscene one, open it and turn it off.

Draw your attention! It is not enough to simply stop an obscene service! You need to specify the Startup Type for it as Disabled! Otherwise, after the first system reboot, the service will work again:

Before disabling services, you can make a restore point, just in case. If everything works correctly after a reboot, then you have disabled only those services whose disabling will not harm the system.

SkypeUpdater- this service is not a Windows system service, it appears after installing Skype and is responsible for updating it - Disable it;

Windows Search- A service for indexing content, caching properties and search results for files, email and other content. in other words, the service speeds up the search process. - Disable (if you rarely use search);

Offline files— maintains the cache of offline files - Disable;

Computer browser- if you have one computer, and it does not work on the Microsoft network and does not participate in the Home Group - Disable it;

Windows Firewall- if you have installed firewall from a third party manufacturer, for example ESET Smart Security, then this service can certainly be disabled;

IP Ancillary Service- needed to support tunneling in IPv6, but since IPv6 is still not used - Disable it;

Secondary login— allows you to run processes on behalf of another user - Disable;

Print Manager— if you don’t have a printer, turn it off;

Remote Access Connection Manager— if you don’t use a VPN (virtual private network) - disable it;

Network Member Identity Manager— to identify participants in a peer-to-peer network - Disable;

Changed Link Tracking Client- Supports connections between NTFS files moved within a computer or between computers on a network - Disabled;

Setting up a Remote Desktop Server— to configure a remote desktop server. If you do not use this feature - Disable it;

Smart Card Removal Policy- without a doubt - Disable;

Homegroup Listener— if you don’t need a Home Group, turn it off;

Windows Event Collector— allows you to collect events from other computers - Disable;

Server- if you do not plan to share the resources of your computer - Disable it;

Network login- if you are not a member of the domain - Disable;

Windows Error Logging Service- Allows the sending of error reports if the program stops working or freezes, and also allows the delivery of existing solutions to problems. Also allows logging for diagnostic and recovery services. If this service is stopped, error reporting may not work and results from the Diagnostic and Recovery Services may not be displayed. - Disable;

Diagnostic system unit

Diagnostic Service Node- useless service - Disable;

Fax- if there is no fax - turn it off;

Windows Update— if you don’t want to update the system (not recommended) - Disable it.

Let me remind you that these are only those Windows 8.1 services that are allowed and must be disabled first, but theoretically you can try to disable other services.



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