If you guys are anything like me, you want your boxes to have the most clean and efficient startup as possible. The Guide to Useless Services will help you trim the fat and get your Windows XP SP2 install booting well in no time.
An operating system is made up of various components that work with each other. The OS isn't just one object - it's a collection of smaller objects, each of which performs a different task. Their conjunction is what makes an "operating system". Windows calls these components "services", Linux calls it "daemons" and so on. Each service in Windows is essentially, to put it in a simpler way, an application that stays running in the back doing its job when required. Now each service takes up some memory, which isn't good if your system has a low amount of memory (like 256MB or less). Fortunately, not all of the default services are required by all users, so you can turn some of them off to free up some memory.
Posted by
Rich 12:00 PM (DST)