Disable Unneeded Services In Windows add security and performance!

Hello!!

In the area of Windows hardening,an area very dear to my heart is disabling Unneeded services.
there is a security advantage here,as most have read about POC's
and malware that were able to target obscure Windows services,that few really
need,but most still run.

It is in the area of performance,particularly in lower end machines,that the gain becomes clearly apparent. I do a lot of stuff with 1gb of RAM.
I credit a lot of that to lean and mean.

The best site I have found for in-depth advice,is the BlackViper website:

http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm

This link is for the Xp Sp3 section,but links to the other Operating systems are here as well.

I use a mix of the "tweaked" and "bare bones" settings,but even the "safe" setting will cut a lot of fat,and improve security.

Needless to say read and understand. Or risk an unbootable machine.
VirtualBox is a good way to test also,as you must reboot.

below is a link to screen-shots of my services page.the maroon line accoss the third page is
to show that the entries above it,were shown on the second page.
You can see it is possible to do a lot of cutting,and maintain high function.

https://s855.photobucket.com/albums/ab114/noorismail/



thanks,
noor

Looks good noor. I note you've disabled Print Spooler service too - having that enabled (even at manual) led to a rare bypass of Sandboxie that was discovered around September 2009. Tzuk has fixed this, but it's always good to keep that disabled. I personally don't even have a printer attached to my computer, so it's a useless service for me anyway.

Thanks ssj100.
I do not print from my computer either.
Turning off automatic updates makes sense to me also,as in ShadowMode I would not be able to get them even if I wanted them.
The same with System Restore.(I do use ERUNT,and make a back up when
I install/uninstall something,or download OS or program updates,to real disk.)
the rest of the disabled stuff,I went over in painful detail figure it out.
I also keep screenshots like those I posted,so in the event of a reformat,it is not so slow to get everything re-tweaked.
Configuring my system this way,lets me run my XP VirtualBox with fair
speed with only 1gig of RAM.

The virtual XP is set up the same way.

noor

For XP here is some hardening tools.

Seconfig XP | WWDC | Security&Privacy | SafeXP | XP-Antispy | Bug Off | Samurai

I dont have time to find links so just google em. these are not programs which run in the back ground, they just modify reg keys, and disable services which are not needed.

Thank you Arran!!
Very nice links/info!!

noor

When messing with services, it is easy to download pserv, with which you may export your current services setting to .xml file and restore later. Or maybe you might create many .xml "presets" to quickly do your tweaks for you while you test different configurations.

Do you disable dcom? I found in the past that something in task manager did not work properly with it disabled (although that was years ago now and I forget what it was).

I do like how windows 7 can start/stop a service as needed. There are too many services enabled by default that I don't use, but I haven't noticed the performance increase by tweaking them nearly as much as I did with xp.

Sul.

Hey Sully, nice to see you here and thanks for your contributions so far.

You know, I have to say that I don't notice any performance increase at all by switching off several services that I don't require on Windows XP. Why? Possibly has something to do with having hardware that was average or above average in 2007 and using it to run an OS (Windows XP) that came out 6 years before that!

pserv seems like a really nice idea. Your eyes kind of cross comparing the lists of services after awhile.

DCOM Server Process Launcher is set to automatic,and is started on my system.

noor

I agree, there is minimal gain on services tweaks on xp. It does depend on what you do normally as well.

When I first installed xp I believe it was on a 750mhz duron, or something around that, maybe an athlon xp 1.5 or something. Only 512mb ddr 2100 ram. The machine was really fast for that time. When I started messing with services then, it was a very noticable difference. I have been doing services tweaks to 2000,xp,vista and now w7. On w7 some of them can be noticable, but even on my machine that is now 3 years old, it is hard to really tell the difference if you tweak them or not. Now it is just something I do because I don't need some of them, or don't want the service to hold ports open needlessly.

Sul.