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Clean-Up the Start-Up
Disabling Startup Services
What is a service?
Think of a service as something in your computer that "serves" applications and components in the Windows by carrying out very specific tasks. An example of one of these special tasks is controlling the ability to communicating with other computers on the internet.
Some services are essential to the operation of your computer, while other services are considered non-essential and will cause no problems to your computer by disabling them.
Why would I want to disable a service?
As mentioned above, many services are not crucial to the operation of your computer. In fact, there are some services that don’t do much but contribute to your PC slowing down!
By disabling services you free up valuable resources towards the use of programs and applications you would like to use at peak performance.
How do I disable non-essential services? What XP Services Can I Turn Off?
It is actually quite simple to disable services, but choosing what services you want to disable can be a little more difficult.
If you have not already booted your computer into safe mode, please go back to the section that describes how to do this before continuing. It is important that you perform these procedures in safe mode as it will ensure the services stay disabled once you reboot.
Some variants of viruses and Malware install themselves as services and have the ability to monitor when they are attempted to be disabled. By booting to safe mode, you are ensuring the malware and viruses do not become active and prevent you from effectively disabling them.
If you are in Safemode, go to the next step.
Open the system configuration utility
Open the System Configuration Utility
This step may already look familiar to you if you used the System Configuration Utility to boot into safemode.
In this step, we are going to open the System Configuration Utility and put a check mark in the box “Hide all Microsoft Services”. We do this to ensure we don’t accidentally disable any critical Microsoft services, and to make it easier to distinguish what services we want to disable.
Open the System Configuration Utility
Click Start > Run. Type in msconfig (without the quotes).
Click on the services tab
Click on the tab called Services. Put a check mark in the box next to Hide all Microsoft Services. After doing this you may see only a few services, this is normal. We are now ready to disable services!
What services do I disable?
This step is where things start to get a bit tricky. I am going to put a two scenarios in front of you so you can choose what you feel best describes the current state of your computer.
Scenario 1 – “The Super Clean”
If you have many pop-ups, your computer runs slow, you have error messages and you have just about had it with you PC, you may want to choose this option. This option can create a lot more work for you in the end, but it almost always guarantees a very clean system when you are through
Scenario 2 – “The Selective Clean”
If your system has been running fairly well, and you do not suspect spyware, malware or viruses choose this option. It will be faster than “The Super Clean”, but may be difficult to choose what services you want to disable.
“The Super Clean”
If you have chosen to do a “The Super Clean”, there are a few critical things you must understand before proceeding further:
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The Super Clean is a full fledge disabling of ALL services. When you disable all services you will suffer the following consequences and will need to take appropriate action on the reboot to rectify these situations:
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If you currently have an anti virus program installed it will not load on the next reboot into normal mode. You will need to re-install the software and update it to ensure you are protected. You may see error messages on the reboot that states your Anti-virus is corrupt, disabled, or non-functional. These problems will be rectified by re-installing your anti-virus software, or re-enabling the services that you disabled.
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You may lose the ability to connect to the internet. You will need to reinstall all software provided to you by your ISP (Internet Service Provider) in order to get back online. Most users on cable internet will not have to worry about this problem. Some dialup and ADSL users may find that after performing a super clean the software that helps you connect to the Internet has been disabled. These problems will be rectified by re-installing your ISP’s software, or re-enabling the services that you disabled.
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Some other applications require special services to run in order to operate properly. The problems with this software will be rectified by re-installing your applications, or re-enabling the services that you disabled.
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Disabling services (See image below steps for reference):
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The best part of the super clean is that it is SIMPLE. Click the disable all button in the bottom right hand corner of the services tab in the System Configuration Utility.
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Click “Apply”
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Proceed on to the next section on “disabling startup items” and complete the Super Clean.
“The Selective Clean”
If you have chosen to perform a selective clean you will only be disabling certain services. Please read the warning section of the super clean as disabling certain services when doing a selective clean may cause problems with certain functionality of the computer on the next reboot.
Selectively Disabling Services:
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The key here is to pay very close attention to the column called “Manufacturer”. First of all, you do not want to disable any services by manufacturers you trust or know that has software installed on your computer you use on a frequent basis.
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Once you have identified the services you DO NOT want to disable, proceed with un-checking the services in the “service” column that you want to disable.
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Once you are satisfied with the services you have chosen to disable, click the “Apply” button.
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Proceed on to the next section on “disabling startup items” and complete the Selective Clean.
You’re getting there! Only a few more steps to complete your cleaning!
I have had many people ask me why they have an error on the reboot to normal mode after performing these steps. Please read the warnings about disabling services, as this will explain why you may be seeing these errors.
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