Disabling Startup Services
One of the areas that users complain about with their system is startup speed. While there are a number of things that you can do to speed your startup, there are several services that are started automatically by Windows XP that generally can be disabled.
- Alerter
- Background Intelligent Transfer Service
- Clipbook
- Fast User Switching
- IP SEC (leave enabled if you’re on a domain instead of a workgroup)
- Remote Desktop Help Session Manager
- Smart Card
- Telnet
- Uninterruptible Power Supply Service
msconfig is your friend! :)
msconfig will do it too. :)
Background Intelligent Transfer Service is one service which you will need to enable for windows update services. If you don’t mind updating windows manually, then go ahead and disable this service.
I agree that many services may be disabled and the one main effect is a speedier startup and also, btw, a more secure computer.
On my computer, I have only 20 services enabled: and most of these are firewall and antispyware services.
Just this month, my latest purchase (for husband, a Dell laptop w. nicad battery), arrived with 65 services running! Most of those services apply to programs we will remove and disable… So far, I’ve only disabled 15 services for him, but I will likely disable more as we continue to customize his computer. He runs it ’standalone’ in the true sense of the word, and he will not connect it to the internet ever…
One of the first things I do to secure a new computer is to remove items from startup and from services… so bravo!