What processes and services to stop?

[Samuel Marin]

This is my deal:
I've installed a neat copy of XP SP2 on a third HD, on a separate
partition because I need all the power my PC can muster for one specific
application: Cubase - though no sequencing or audio playback will be
implied - and a couple of virtual instruments and effects - very
strenuous ones.
I must have a clean XP: no anti virus, no protection whatsoever, no net,
no update, no planned task, nothing. The absolute bare minimum to make
sure everything will go fine and smoothly for one special gig (4 hours).
I disabled all visual improvements of XP, disabled backup points,
security alerts and firewall, installed the drivers I have tested for a
long time, and so on.

My question now: what processes should I stop that I forgot to stop
running? What services should I impede that I left running? What other
idea of improvement would you give for this very particular application?

My PC:
PIV 2.8C HT
QDI i865
3 Gb DDR3200 dual channel (2x512Mb + 2x1Gb)
300Gb, 16Mb (normal XP, not used here) + 200Gb,16Mb (sound banks) +
400Gb, 16Mb (This copy of XP installed on an 80Gb partition of the 400Gb HD)
Hoontech (StAudio) DSP24 Value
NVidia 6800 (noname)
2 network cards: one on motherboard, one PCI
ACPI installed
Laser mouse on USB2
Generic 17' monitor (lent by gig)

Thanks a lot.
Sam.

 

[Guest]

Black Viper's Web Site: http://www.blackviper.com/

 

[John John]

Well, that is an open ended question if I ever saw one!

The following are critical system services, they cannot be turned off:

smss.exe
csrss.exe
lsass.exe
services.exe
winlogon.exe
System
svchost.exe with RPCSS
svchost.exe with Dcom/PnP

winit.exe and logonui.exe are also critical services but they disappear
from the task list a short while after logging on to the computer.

You can go through the items one by one in your task manager and kill
the process and the whole process tree for different entries and see
what happens. You get two kind of messages when you try to kill
processes and its tree, try it and you will see what I mean. If you can
kill the process and its spawned tree then you can probably safely
change the startup type to manual.

John

 

[Poprivet]

This is my deal:
I've installed a neat copy of XP SP2 on a third HD, on a separate
partition because I need all the power my PC can muster for one
specific application: Cubase - though no sequencing or audio playback
will be implied - and a couple of virtual instruments and effects -
very strenuous ones.
I must have a clean XP: no anti virus, no protection whatsoever, no
net, no update, no planned task, nothing. The absolute bare minimum to
make
sure everything will go fine and smoothly for one special gig (4
hours). I disabled all visual improvements of XP, disabled backup points,
security alerts and firewall, installed the drivers I have tested for
a long time, and so on.

My question now: what processes should I stop that I forgot to stop
running? What services should I impede that I left running? What other
idea of improvement would you give for this very particular
application?
My PC:
PIV 2.8C HT
QDI i865
3 Gb DDR3200 dual channel (2x512Mb + 2x1Gb)
300Gb, 16Mb (normal XP, not used here) + 200Gb,16Mb (sound banks) +
400Gb, 16Mb (This copy of XP installed on an 80Gb partition of the
400Gb HD) Hoontech (StAudio) DSP24 Value
NVidia 6800 (noname)
2 network cards: one on motherboard, one PCI
ACPI installed
Laser mouse on USB2
Generic 17' monitor (lent by gig)

Thanks a lot.
Sam.

MSConfig will let you turn everything off that can safely be turned off if
you tick the right box.