system optimization MS services

doctorfish wrote on 1/31/2006, 6:31 AM

When tweaking and optimizing my system for audio/video work I often do much of the stuff found here:

http://www.pcaudiolabs.com/winxp_tweaks.asp

I usually don't bother with the services and registry tweaks as I've usually installed Windows myself on a newly formatted partition and have always been able to get good performance. However I am now running Vegas for some light video editing and rendering on my Compaq laptop. Needless to say this laptop came with a bunch of stuff pre-installed and un-necessary to my needs.

I've gone through the services listed in the above link and disabled any I thought I didn't need but haven't really noticed much difference in performance. My problem is this though. Every time I start Vegas now I get an "Unidentified Error". The program continues and seems to operate fine after I click the OK button but I was wondering what others have done as far as disabling services in Windows. Vegas may apparantly need some of these but I'm just not sure which ones.

Here's a list of the services I disabled.

Alerter
Clipbook
Distributed Link Tracking Client
Distributed Transaction Coordinator
Error Reporting Service
Fast User Switching
Help And Support
Messenger
Network DDE
Network DDE DSDM
Routing and Remote Access
Secondary Logon
Smart Card
Terminal Services
Volume Shadow Copy
Wireless Zero Configuration
WMI Performance Adapter

Anyone know if Vegas needs any of these?

Thanks.

Dave

Comments

rs170a wrote on 1/31/2006, 9:14 AM

Dave, I grabbed the following from this forum some time ago. I'm sure it's in the knowledgebase somewhere but I'm not sure what search terms to use. HTH.

Mike

Close all background applications. This is not limited to the
programs that show in the system tray. Do a ctrl+alt+del and end
task or process on as many applications as you can, leaving only
Explorer and Systray for 98 or ME. For Windows 2000 and XP
move over to the Processes Tab and click the "Image Name"
heading at the top of this window twice, you would be able to view
these items by alphabetical order. For Windows 2000, you should
only have:

explorer.exe
lsass.exe
mapisp32.exe
mstask.exe
services.exe
smss.exe
spoolsv.exe
stisvc.exe
svchost.exe
system
system idle process
taskmgr.exe
winlogon.exe
winmgmt.exe

For Windows XP, you will only need next to your user name:

explorer.exe
taskmgr.exe

Next to "system":
csrss.exe
lsass.exe
mspmspv.exe
services.exe
smss.exe
spoolsv.exe
svchost.exe
system
system idle process
winlogon.exe

MarkWWW wrote on 1/31/2006, 11:47 AM

The unidentified error is probably because you have disabled "Terminal Services" which Vegas needs to allow "Fast User Switching" to work. If you re-enable "Terminal Services" you should find the error goes away.

Mark

johnmeyer wrote on 1/31/2006, 12:36 PM

I went through a period where I disabled a lot of these services. Things kept breaking, and I didn't notice any appreciable change in boot time, or in overall performance. Except for Messenger, I don't know whether you are gaining much by disabling all those other things. You sure as heck want to disable the evil Indexing Services and you definitely want to kill Messenger, but those are the only ones that have a significant effect on performance or security.

doctorfish wrote on 2/3/2006, 3:44 AM

Thanks for the replies. Interesting that Vegas would need Terminal Services for fast user switching. I've actually disabled fast user switching as well figuring it isn't needed as I'm the only user on this computer.

At first disabling all these services didn't seem to make much difference but yesterday the computer was working pretty well so the jury's still out. I'll be back at it today experimenting with all these things.

Dave

Jacksmyname wrote on 2/3/2006, 4:06 AM

Here's another site with info on disabling services:
http://www.overclockersclub.com/guides/windows_xp_services.php
I also do this, but I'm also not sure it's really worth it perfprmance wise. I just bought 2 new computers, Dell XPS 400's; one for me and one for my wife. The first thing I did with mine was to reformat and clean install Windows. When all the updates, etc. were done, I disabled the services.
She doesn't want me to do the same to her system, and so she still has all the "stuff" that was preinstalled. So far, her system works fine.
But there are some services that are security risks, and should be disabled.
Jack

DGrob wrote on 2/3/2006, 12:55 PM

I tried a PC Mag recommended utility PC Pitstop and am very happy with the results. Darryl