Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: BTW on August 09, 2005, 04:48:50 PM
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Are there any startup apps in winXP that I have to be careful not to uncheck? I assume there isn't as there's a button to hit to disable all. But I want to make sure before I start unchecking things in msconfig.exe >startup
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Yeah, there are a lot you don't want to disable... Some control internet connection, some control basic windows processes that you need, as important as "explorer" but named different things.
Here's what I did. I opened it up and went to the startup tab. I checked each and every entry. Look at where it is. "navapw32" is really norton antivirus. I leave that on. I disable it in my task bar if necessary. But I know it's norton because in the location field it lists the norton directory.
Some things I've looked up over time (google them) and for the most part it seems most are pretty necessary. ctfmon, wcesmon, etc... nvmctray is really nvidia's drivers (need this if you use any custom settings like color correction -- which I use for my partially burnt monitor). However nwiz you can safely disable if you don't use desktop profiles or anything.
Then there's the stuff I want running. MaxMem. Adobe gamma loader (a must), and zonealarm.
Anything blank uncheck. That's suspicious right there. If it's things you don't want loading uncheck it (i.e. roxio easy CD things, I don't want those running until I need to burn something).
So you have to consider each and every one. If you don't recognize it, don't mess with it. You might need it for basic windows functions.
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Believe what you want, but Windows XP is perfectly able to run WITHOUT ANY OF THOSE THINGS CHECKED.
Some hardware may not work. Some applications may not start as fast. Some features "built in" to some programs may not work. (Example - a webcam might not take picutres any more, or a programable game controller may not have its programming any more. All these features will come back by checking the app in that screen again.)
But most everything else will.
When you do a fresh Windows XP install, wanna guess what's there? NOTHING.
Anyway, what I normally do is google "whatever.exe" that appears in that list. You can bet that someone somewhere has asked what something is, and gotten an answer.
-Llama
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Originally posted by llama
When you do a fresh Windows XP install, wanna guess what's there? NOTHING.
Not for me!!! I did a fresh XP install not that long ago, and I did check my startup list, out of curiousity, and most of the crap was there, default, part of windows.
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I'm just worried if i can boot up. I know unchecking certain things may disable some programs (like zonealarm), but as long as the computer will boot, I can recheck things needed. I got like 20 apps in the startup- thats nuts. The reason I asked is I remember there were a couple of services one could disable that prevent the computer from booting up. Now I *assume* there's no startup program that can do that since there's a button to disable all. But we all know what happens when one assumes:(
Thats why I asked - I just don't want to get to a state where I cant boot the computer or completely lose the monitor.
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Look, this is getting rediculous.
You can boot up totally fine when everything is unchecked. I do it all the time. I install XP onto new hard drives around 40 times a year, and NOTHING is checked as a startup program every time. Don't confuse startup programs with startup services.
Also, you know when you boot into safe mode in windows? NOTHING checked in that list starts up in safe mode.
So really, don't worry about it. You're good to go.
-Llama
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llama is right. Thats why Microsoft PUT that darn "Disable All" button there. Do you really think they'd do that if it would screw up your OS? Not one thing on that list is necessary to Windows. When you run msconfig and go the the Startup tab, absolutely everything on there is an addon.
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I dont think it is the start up programs that are the problem. Think he wants to know what services he can shut down without a problem.
Bronk
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Originally posted by BTW
Are there any startup apps in winXP that I have to be careful not to uncheck? I assume there isn't as there's a button to hit to disable all. But I want to make sure before I start unchecking things in msconfig.exe >startup
There is what the original question was. I dont see what services to disable there. Thats a question about the startup tab in msconfig.
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My bad . But would't BTW get a performance boost by shutting down some services also?
Bronk
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I have the the common services that hit performance disabled (BlackViper site). But I found about 20 programs in startup. The ones that bothered me were the nividia and hp imaging programs. I wanted to make sure I'd still have a monitor before unchecking those.
And I figured also that the "disable all" button wouldn't be there if some were needed. But then Microsoft does some "interesting" things.
Thanks for the help. I feel better about tweaking the startup aps now.
BTW, is there a way to make different starup configurations?
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Services are a whole other ball of wax.
For starters, you should NOT use the "Services" tab in ths MSCONFIG window to turn off services permanently. That is just a temporary way to disable something at a single boot for troubleshooting.
There is a great site written by "Black Viper," but for some reason, it is down. There's a good mirror at:
http://majorgeeks.com/page.php?id=12
It talks about what every service is and if you need it. You can dramatically speed up a Windows machine by eliminating unneeded Services.
And over at Slahdot, they recently ran a story how you can (with some provisos here) run Windows without any services either, though some networking doesn't work. Still, you can save a lot of memory and CPU cycles by turnin off some things. I have XP running happily on a P2@350 with 192 MB of ram with lots of services turned off. It is no speed demon, but it is totally usable.
-Llama
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There is a sticky message in the tech support forum where Skuzzy describes a few of the services that can be turn off/disabled.
link (http://www.hitechcreations.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=71591)
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Also check here-
http://www.hitechcreations.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=123142
The app has been updated since this post and works even better allowing separate setups for each game you play.
and here-
http://www.answersthatwork.com/Tasklist_pages/tasklist.htm
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Thanks for the link to the program, DaveNRino.
That sounds like what I am looking for.
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Believe what you want, but Windows XP is perfectly able to run WITHOUT ANY OF THOSE THINGS CHECKED.
Sure it is BUT.... Without a firewall you leave your system vulnerable to hackers and prying eyes!. Without an anti virus enables if you happen to close the game and open an email you run a very high risk of getting a virus. In the thre years I worked for Dell I have seen this happen more times than I care to mention and have had to listen to people whine about them having their system hijacked or infected with no telling how many worms. The final option of whether or not to leave your A/V or Firewall running is up to you.
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Originally posted by BTW
Thanks for the link to the program, DaveNRino.
That sounds like what I am looking for.
That old link will not get to the most current version that I am using. This is one of several that will -
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/System-Tweak/FSAutoStart.shtml
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Thanks again!
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Get your running processes under 20 and you shouldn't worry about lost cycles or consumed memory. I've had mine as lean as 15 running processes and been stable, but the difference between 15 services/processes and 20 is negligible (as long as they aint 3rd party TSRs or other crap) at best. I've also seen a system run AH2 just fine with 50 processes running too, so YMMV.
Edit:
MSCONFIG is a free tool built-in for Windows, and it is worth every penny, a great free tool for troubleshooting a machine that is not booting correctly. But for tweaking a box I greatly prefer this tool:
http://www.sysinternals.com/utilities/autoruns.html
As long as you stick to the default screen you can't get yourself into TOO much trouble. SOme of the advanced features can definitely ruin an install and require reload though...so be careful.