windows with no services

[SirPoonga]

Wonder if you can still run emulators...  some of you might be interested in this then.

http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/2005/07/running-windows-with-no-services.html

[Howard_Casto]

Well crap.... now I've gotta let another cat out of the bag. 

Something I've been researching is what services windows really needs. 

It hit me a couple of weeks ago....  via apis I can close processes and start processes.  So why bother with special user accounts, stupid registry tweaks and ect.  I'll just make a program in which you list all unnecessary processes that are normally running on your system.  Run it with the "-off" tag and it'll kill them all.  Run it again with the "-on" tag and it starts them up again. 

While I found this article useful, I also found it bloated, boring, and hard to follow.  If someone would like to translate it from nerd to regular speech I would be very intersted in writing a little utility to kill/start these processes.   

No joke though, I'm very interested in this.  If someone wants to help me track this crap down, I'll write a utility to make the shutdown process idiot proof.

[Howard_Casto]

Ok I tried the method mentioend in the article.  It works.  Actually it works amazingly well.  All applications including emulators seem to work too.  Most are noticably faster.  3d pc games run WAAAY faster.  I was able to run the battlefield 2 demo at ultra quality without any stuttering.  Mind you I could run battlefield fine before at the high quality setting, but still, that's an improvment. 

Crusin runs at a solid 30 fps without tweaks and cheats.  Tekken and the psx fighters had similar results. 

All emulators seem to work.  Even dk, which is highly dependant upon the windows processes, seems to run fine. 


There seems to be one major flaw though.  While direct 3d works great, my sound card and direct sound aren't working.  I'll have to track down what process that is in teh main tree and keep it running. 

But to give you guys an idea of the difference.  Xp normally uses about 230 megs of ram for the os... now it's using about 40. 

[btoddkelley]

This is exciting stuff! I have always felt there needed to be a stripped down version of windowsfor cabinet use. I know there was a 98 version but XP works so much better with Daphne.

Todd

[UndeadMeat]

I am so going to try this tomorrow. Thanks SirPoonga for the great info!

UndeadMeat

[Popcorrin]

Didn't blackviper used to have a list of what services were needed and unneeded.

[youki]

I wouldn't recommand to use the method described in the article in your mamecab.

Tools you can find on Sysinternals are very powerfull , but you have to use it with care if you don't know what you do. I use that tools for years now.

There is others more clean and safe way to minimize your XP. By stopping all unnecessary services.
And find what services you need or not , it relativly trivial for somebody who has some average knwoledge of the system and can read english.

Microsoft provides in standard with XP , a very usefull tool to do that.  All windows developpers and advanced users should know it.  Msconfig

[grueinthebox]

http://www.theeldergeek.com has a nice catalog of XP services, what they do, and recommendations on whether or not it's a good idea to shut them down...

[SirPoonga]

Forgot the disclaimer.  Running minimum like this does open your computer to security risks.  You will definately want at least an antivirus and spyware running.

In fact, I only suggest doing this to a cabinet that is not meant to have internet access.


Howard, what would be cool is to have a profile program.  You can save a profile of what services oyu want on and off, etc...  Then the profiler turns them on and off when a profile is loaded.

[Samstag]

Forgot the disclaimer.

[PetitMorte]

If you're running a stand-alone PC in your arcade cab, then you won't need antivirii or firewalls.

The problem with this process is that you have to start windows, and them manually kill off all of the "unnecessary" services.  As far as I can tell, there's no way to start windows into this ultra-minimalist state automatically.

[Howard_Casto]

About black vipers tweaks and others floating around the net.  They turn off a few services.  You might save 30 megs of footprint tops.  In other words, they usually aren't worth it.   This turns off ALL services except for the imaginary "idle system process" and it's tag-alongs. 
In other words it IS worth it. 

And there is absolutely positively nothing dangerious about turning of services.  (Assuming you disable your net acess as well).  The worst that can happen is you can't run something. 


Oh btw, there was something I forgot to mention that's pretty key.  Once you do this you can't shut your pc down!  Winlogon apparently also contains the shutdown code.  Of course you can manually turn the pc off just fine.  Starting winlogon again should fix the issue.


And yes you have to get into this slim mode manually.....did you guys miss the part about me wanting to write a utility?  Sometimes I think I'm talking to myself. 

[SirPoonga]

Forgot the disclaimer.  Running minimum like this does open your computer to security risks.  You will definately want at least an antivirus and spyware running.

But that would completely destroy any performance gains you'd get from removing microsoft services.  It would make a lot more sense to disable networking when you go lean.

Hence why I said

In fact, I only suggest doing this to a cabinet that is not meant to have internet access.

[jcrouse]

If you're running a stand-alone PC in your arcade cab, then you won't need antivirii or firewalls.

The problem with this process is that you have to start windows, and them manually kill off all of the "unnecessary" services.

[markb]

I've just tried this on an old K6 (450mhz, 96mb ram, 8mb onboard video) I ran Divx Player and it refused to load any audio codecs however it did make playback marginally faster.

Is it me or does it seem that the more memory you put in a PC the more Windows XP seems to take up?

[elvis]

Is it me or does it seem that the more memory you put in a PC the more Windows XP seems to take up?

Windows likes to cache whatever it can whereever it can.  For day to day multitasking use this strategy works a treat, but for folks who want ultra performance from one application (gamers, or folks using intensive programs like film/editing/3d/etc) the strategy probably does more harm than good.

I'm rather suprised (yet excited) to hear that video accelleration still works with services disabled.  That's something I didn't expect to hear.  I was under the impression that much of the HAL related stuff in Windows was service-related, but obviously video is lower level than that.  It makes sense that something like audio would break with *EVERYTHING* turned off, but it wouldn't be hard to track down what's causing that.

I would be a great resource to have a stickied list of all services that must run for (1) standalone emulation with sound to run and (2) emulation with sound and network to run.

[Acids]

.....did you guys miss the part about me wanting to write a utility?

[midway]

yeah baby!
strip it right back.
lean and fast at the touch of a button... groovy.
Excess baggage who needs it ?!
pffffff!
mw

[Howard_Casto]

If you're running a stand-alone PC in your arcade cab, then you won't need antivirii or firewalls.

The problem with this process is that you have to start windows, and them manually kill off all of the "unnecessary" services.

[Tiger-Heli]

Newb Question - how can you tell how much memory the system is using?
Also, the barebones setup at BlackViper leaves only 6 services running.  I can see eliminating ALL services saving you 100meg or more from a default install, but find it hard to believe that 6 services are using that much RAM.  FWIW.

[jcrouse]

If your on 2000 or XP bring up task manager by doing a Ctrl-Alt-Del and look on the performance tab.

John

[Tiger-Heli]

If your on 2000 or XP bring up task manager by doing a Ctrl-Alt-Del and look on the performance tab.

John

Thanks!!!!

[Tiger-Heli]

I wish I had more time to invest in this right now, but atm I don't have time to track down which service(s) is needed to get audio working.  If someone would be so kind as to figure that out for me (afaik trail and error is the only way)  I should be able to whip out a utility in no time. 

Just a guess, but maybe Windows Audio - http://www.theeldergeek.com/windows_audio.htm - The description sounds right and it's one of the six the BV recommends keeping, so . . .

[KenToad]

Well crap.... now I've gotta let another cat out of the bag. 

Something I've been researching is what services windows really needs. 

It hit me a couple of weeks ago....  via apis I can close processes and start processes.  So why bother with special user accounts, stupid registry tweaks and ect.  I'll just make a program in which you list all unnecessary processes that are normally running on your system.  Run it with the "-off" tag and it'll kill them all.  Run it again with the "-on" tag and it starts them up again. 

While I found this article useful, I also found it bloated, boring, and hard to follow.  If someone would like to translate it from nerd to regular speech I would be very intersted in writing a little utility to kill/start these processes.   

No joke though, I'm very interested in this.  If someone wants to help me track this crap down, I'll write a utility to make the shutdown process idiot proof.

Howard,

  I doubt I could help you, but I would definitely be interested in seeing what kind of utility you could create.  I found what you wrote in this thread extremely exciting, especially since I'm using a cheapo borderline comp with minimal RAM.  I'm sure any utility you could come up with would become the standard for BYOAC'ers in no time. 

  Good luck.  If you need any more encouragement, I'm here.

Cheers,
KenToad

[Howard_Casto]

I wish I had more time to invest in this right now, but atm I don't have time to track down which service(s) is needed to get audio working.

[KenToad]

More poking...
"Windows Audio Service" depends on the PlugPlay service, which is started as part of services.exe.

The Windows Audio service can be started standalone, in a separate svchost.

The PNP service, sadly, starts as part of services.exe and thus prevents terminating services.exe (since then pnp service and audio will break).

Is there a way to start PlugPlay service separately from services.exe ?

Thanks.
# posted by silvioster : 9:07 AM, July 29, 2005

Maybe this info. helps, Howard, if you haven't seen it already.  It's one of the last replies on the blog.

Cheers,
KenToad

[Howard_Casto]

Well sorta.... it means that this particular route is probably a dead-end.  If you keep services and an svchost loaded you might as well just use blackviper's tweaks and be done with it.