autoruns

you wouldn't believe all of the processes that are started when widows starts.
even processes that you will most likely never have a need for, but you just might.
drivers for canon bubblejet printers for example are loaded every time windows starts.
if you do not use a printer or you do not have a canon bubblejet printer then this entry can be disabled.

i have downloaded this app and have been disabling various things with it.
i have already crashed my OS a couple times with this app to the point i had to reinstall so be careful if you like to tweak.

i will be posting the entries i have disabled, yours will of course be different depending if you are on a network and the peripherals connected to your machine.

input on this subject is welcomed.

 

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You can permanently disable of lot of these "services" by typing "services.msc" in the run command. Doing so brings up a list of all services available on your computer. Many of them will not be turned on, but a lot of them are and many of them are completely useless. Some of them even compromise security to some degree. I went through all of mine and disabled all unnecessary ones and found that my computers performance was greatly enhanced and I'm down to using only about 20% of my RAM. I would't recommend autoruns as much as "process explorer."
Also, see the following page for a list of all services and an explanation of them and if they can be safely disabled or not. The link os to the page for WinXP, but if you navigate around a little, they do have sections for other versions of windows.
Make sure to keep a list of any and every process that you disable so that if something goes wrong or stops working, you can reverse it.
I also found that on Win vista and Win 7, there are far less services that you can safely disable, but there still are some. I use WinXP, but my mom has Win7, and I tried doing it on her computer and wasn't able to free up very much. Still, I want max performance and if theres something running that doesn't need to be, I'm gonna shut it off.

If you have any questions about this, let me know in this thread... that is, after you get back from your forced vacation

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edit: hehe... forgot the link
http://www.blackviper.com/

 

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Have you tried cd c:/ ; del tree ?

 

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www.blackviper.com covers a number of the services that run which can be turned off safely, use caution when disabling (or at least a pen and pad to note down what you do so you can fix it if need be.)

Incidentally on the subject of Autoruns, Microsoft did an update earlier in the year to change how USB sticks are read so that any autorun's included to trigger it no longer automatically run. Initially the autorun file could be applied to a USB stick similar to how a CD/DVD starts up and this caused problems as it was misused to spread viruses.

 

ah yes, blackviper.com
i went there and clicked on the XP 32bit service pack 3 link.
the problem is i don't have SP3, soooo . . .
i used the info anyway.

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disabled everything that wasn't "automatic" in the last column.
been running my OS for the last 2 or 3 days with this configuration and so far haven't found any problems.
even with this boatload of disabled processes i still have as many, if not more, that are still processed at startup.

one peculiar entry in autoruns caught my eye.
apparently my OS was trying to load a driver from drive E:.
uh, that's my CD drive.
hmmmm . . .

 

autoruns lets you save your configurations settings.
the method i use is to save the current configuration and then disable a few processes using the "search online" feature of autoruns.
i then reboot (cold).
if i can reboot and use my OS and all of my apps for the next 2 or 3 days i again save the current configuration and repeat the above process.
i recently found i can usually get into "safe mode" if my OS crashes after a configuration change. this will allow you to import the last known configuration that worked.

 

A better way to disable startup programs is by going to "run" and typing msconfig. Click the startup tab and look through the list of programs that start at bootup. The following page gives a very thorough list of what these all are and whats safe to disable. Theres also a tab to disable the services, but DO NOT mess with the services under msconfig. Usually using any kind of program to disable startup apps isn't that useful, largely because the programs still start at startup but then the program starts and shuts them down. msconfig sets them up to just simply not start at all.

edit:

Also, do you have "Hijackthis" http://free.antivirus.com/hijackthis/
Its a good program to scan for unwanted processes, apps etc. After you run the scan, save a log and copy and paste the results to the following page:
http://www.hijackthis.de/

It will go through the list and tell you if any of the programs are malicious and gives you the option of disabling them. Careful with Hijack this though, you can hose your system with it.

Here are some other pages that can help with system optimization. Oh and, before I post them, I strongly suggest updating to SP3!!

http://www.helpwithwindows.com/WindowsXP/tune-051.html
Shows you how to access additional windows components that can be uninstalled/disabled. Again, be careful with this info as well as it can hose you.

http://www.mvps.org/ecvogel/kb/XP_remove_progs.htm
Same info as above, just another resource

http://www.blackviper.com/2002/04/17/black-vipers-windows-xp-super-tweaks/
Same as black viper above, but gives other info as to how to optimize and get rid of other shit.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;322756
How to back up and restore registry. Which I would suggest doing before taking any further steps!


Hope this all helps!

 

all of the services?
i have found huge differences in what services.msc and autoruns displays.
for example:
on my machine services.msc displays 87 entries.
only 18 of which are started.

autoruns on the other hand displays 568 entries.
autoruns does't show whether an entry has been started or not.

 

Blackviper is the man, been using him since win2k. Best thin is to go into computer management first and disable accordingly.

 

I've never really had much of a problem with speed on my Win XP and my 2.3 processor with 4 gigs of RAM. So I've never seen the need to do any "tweaks" to my OS to help speed things up. I don't think that a great deal of speed can be had by tweaking things when it takes less than one thousandth of a second to find stuff that I'm looking for online.:shrug:

 

Cosmic. Most of these tweaks aren't for speeding up internet speed. They're more for speeding up the processor, or rather, freeing up the amount of RAM your computer is using. I originally decide to tweak my system because I was trying to play the game Fable. It was pretty jumpy and slow, but I knew I had the resources to run the game. It just ran like shit. After tweaking my system and disabling all unnecessary programs and services, I noticed a huge difference in game performance. There was also a noticeable difference in some other windows processes that I do. In the program Process explorer, it shows you how much RAM you are using. I regret not doing a before and after check to see how much I freed up, but the program also shows you how much RAM each program is using. Some a serious RAM hogs, and completely unnecessary. There are also a couple of services that are set to auto start that actually compromise system security!!!

 

Hmm... I thought it did. I'm gonna download autoruns and look into this...

 

Are you looking under the "everything" tab, or the "services" tab? Under my services tab, there are only 13 entries. The everything tab has... well a lot but certainly nothing close to 500. Though most of these things are registry entries... SO my guess is that this is a list of all things that could be set to run depending on system settings and all the shit that must run for specific programs. For example, under the "codecs" tab I see all the codecs that are on my system that I have for viewing certain video formats and/or converting from one format to another. I think autoruns is showing you ALL things that are installed on your system. If you go to "run" and type "regedit" you will also get this list, but regedit is hard to work with and you can seriously hose your system by messing around in it. I don't even go into regedit to look before first backing up my system.

I remember trying autoruns once before and found it too confusing and difficult to work with, which is why i searched for alternative ways to tweak my system. Though now you have sparked my interest in it so I'm gonna have to figure it out

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yes.

the figure i gave was an estimate.
i counted the entries on one displayed page and multiplied that by the number of pages autoruns displayed under the "everything" tab.
i then subtracted the headings.

yes. the everything tab displays EVERYTHING that starts when windows starts.
most of this stuff is entirely unnecessary judging by what services.msc displays.

what i like about autoruns is the left click and search online feature.
left click an entry then select search online.
this will bring up search results concerning the file name itself.
some of these results are useful, some are not.
my site adviser plug-in has alerted me about some of those results so be careful.

careful, i've already hosed my OS with it once already.
F8 during boot will get you into safe mode.

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it isn't just a matter of speed or performance.
to those that doesn't feel it it cannot be explained.
i got win95 to run inside a 90 meg footprint.
so? and?
people like to do seemingly strange things i guess. :shrug:

 

skaught must've blown up his machine.

 

Isn't this also possible by bringing up the task manager and going to the processes tab and ending it from there? Or are there some drivers that are invisible from there?

 

Task manager will show you processes that are running, but not the details. You can shut them down from there, but you can't permanently disable them. Programs like autoruns, processxp, and process hacker allow you to view everything that is running, and gives all the details. You can also shut them down and disable them using these programs.