Don’t you love really helpful statements that you find in “tweaking” guides like
TURN OFF UNNECCESARY SEVICES
Yep, sure, no problem. WHICH ONES DONT WE NEED?
Here are two really good articles that will help you figure it out.
First up, we have Techtree.com India’s Guide to Useless Services (Windows XP SP2)
Here is a bit…
An operating system is made up of various components that work with each other. The OS isn’t just one object – it’s a collection of smaller objects, each of which performs a different task. Their conjunction is what makes an “operating system”. Windows calls these components “services”, Linux calls it “daemons” and so on. Each service in Windows is essentially, to put it in a simpler way, an application that stays running in the back doing its job when required. Now each service takes up some memory, which isn’t good if your system has a low amount of memory (like 256MB or less). Fortunately, not all of the default services are required by all users, so you can turn some of them off to free up some memory.
and next up The Elder Geek’s Services Guide for Windows XP
When I first sketched out the rough draft of what I wanted to include in The Elder Geek I wasn’t going to have a section dealing with Services. There are a ton of sites out ‘there’ that go into excruciating detail on how to extract the last ounce of performance by fiddling with the default XP services. A few hundred e-mails later from readers wanting to know why I didn’t have a services section, here it is, ready for you to peruse.
Read both and then you will know whether or not it’s worth your effort.
For the record, I only ever turn off two straight off and then the rest depend on the machines use.
Be careful.