Startup Services

[brammers]

Hi all,

The old PC's been running a little sluggish lately and I'm trying to cut down on the stuff it's running. I'm fairly happy with the startup programs tab in MSconfig and I've got it down to:

Windows Defender
AVG 8
Touchpad Driver
Seagate Backup software
Spybot S&D

However I've recently had a look at the services tab and I'm seeing quite a lot of stuff running. After hiding all the MS stuff I end up with this lot:

Andrea ST Filters Service
Apple Mobile Device
AVG Free8 Email scanner
AVG Free8 Watchdog
Bonjour Service
Flexnet Licensing servive
Seagate Service
Google Software Updater
iPod service
MozyHome Backup service
Sigmatel Audio Service
Dell Wireless WLAN Tray Service

Can anyone tell me which of those are safe to disable? Do they work like startup programs, where if I don't run say my Mozybackup at startup, I suffer no ill-effects if I/a program run(s) it later?

In particular I believe that Bonjour is only used for allowing Itunes to play music over a network (I never do this) and I'm not sure my Google software needs updating all that often (google earth, think that's it). Any reccomendations, on either my services or my startup programs?

Cheers all!

Adam

[WhiteGiant]

Can't give any specific advice, but if I find a service I'm unsure of I simply google the executable's name, within the first few results I usually find out if its safe to remove it from startup.

[s3ds]

download this
http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml
i prefer it to MSconfig
you can turn off the auto start and reboot if you have problems use it to start them again
if you disable the service your pc will not start it later if it needs it.

[jim]

Bear in mind that it's far better to alter the services that your computer runs by running services.msc than using msconfig.

You can also safely disable some of the windows ones if you don't use their functionality, there's a fair few guides around on the net to tell you what each one does. With third-party services I tend to operate a try-and-see technique - if it doesn't need to be on all the time, eg ipod service, then set it to manual instead of automatic. Boot up your PC with it on manual, try to sync the ipod, see if it works. If not, put it back to automatic. If it does, sorted. Tends to work reasonably well.

[Singh400]

Just my opinion...

Windows Defender <<Don't need. It's provides "real time" protection, which is useless in my eyes.
AVG 8
Touchpad Driver
Seagate Backup software
Spybot S&D <<Don't need. It's provides "real time" protection, which is useless in my eyes.

Andrea ST Filters Service
Apple Mobile Device
AVG Free8 Email scanner
AVG Free8 Watchdog <<Don't need. It's provides "real time" protection, which is useless in my eyes.
Bonjour Service <<Get rid of, useless service from Adobe.
Flexnet Licensing servive <<Set to manual, needed when you run any Adobe program.
Seagate Service
Google Software Updater <<Turn off, you can manual update.
iPod service <<Turn off, you don't use iTunes all the time do you?
MozyHome Backup service
Sigmatel Audio Service
Dell Wireless WLAN Tray Service

[malfunction]

Apple Mobile Device
Bonjour Service
iPod service

Uninstall Apple Mobile Device support, Apple Automatic Update and Bonjour from add / remove programs. You can disable the iPod service in the services.msc but iTunes will re-enable it (or maybe that's because I'm lazy and running everything / logging in as admin). You may have issues as and when you upgrade iTunes (it will re-install these bits at a minimum I would say)

[vinnyT]

Take a look at the Black Viper site, http://www.blackviper.com/, it explains what services are needed and which are not.

[brammers]

Thanks guys, those tips were very handy. I've decided not to take your advice Singh and I've left Defender and Spybot on - I'm not educated about 'real time' protection and Spybot occasionally blocks start-up adds so I'm happy with it.

One point - I couldn't get a working version of Mlin's startup control panel. His site doesn't work from China and the sites like majorgeeks that host his app don't specify that it runs on vista... Could someone give me a different link to that, or reccomend something else?

Cheers!