Hello everyone,

I am so tired of background programs (software applications) that load and run without even being launched! These numerous programs (called services) are invisible to the average computer user and suck up precious computer resources. While many of these services are needed, many more are not, and can easily be shut off. Today I’ll tell you which services to stop in Windows Vista (in a previous post I covered Windows XP) so that your computer will boot faster, run faster, and not be bogged down by these unneeded resource leeches.

The best way to stop a service is: Start Menu>Run Option>Type services.msc. The Services window will open (see above photo).

These are the services that I always disable in Windows Vista. I have never had any system problems whatsoever after disabling these services, but you may not want to turn off all of them (because you use them for some reason). I suggest that you turn them all off and then if you need one (your computer will alert you) just turn it back on.

1. Computer Browser
2. Function Discovery Resource Publication
3. IKE and AuthIP IPsec Keying Modules (change from Automatic to Manual)
4. Infrared Monitor Service
5. IPsec Policy Agent
6. KtmRm for Distributed Transaction Coordinator
7. Offline Files
8. Portable Device Enumerator Service (change from Automatic to Manual)
9. Print Spooler (only if not using a printer)
10. Remote Registry
11. Secondary Logon (change from Automatic to Manual)
12. Security Center (change from Automatic to Manual)
13. Tablet PC Input Service
14. TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper
15. Terminal Services
16. WebClient

I can guarantee you that turning off these sixteen services will do wonders for your computers response time! In a future post I’ll cover the services to disable in Windows 7.

Professor Randy says: Don’t let your computer do whatever it wants! Control it yourself by turning off all services that you don’t need!