you can turn off anything you want under the "startup" tab, as a example my humble pc has 31 items in this area all but 8 are disable. Some items are hard to guess at what they do... example "dumprept 0-okl" on my machine, I still do not know what it for but I left it off.

The best way to think about this is like a panel in a large building. Some breakers have very strange labels, sometimes the best way to find out what they do is to turn then off and see what happens. ( If the building is occupied at the time our shop refers to this as the "scream test" [Linked Image] ...). Others you can tell by there names. Its kind of like that with some programs.

Any other tabs you must be careful on what you remove. Under services I have turn off -uninterruptible power supply ( don't have one),wireless zero config ( I'm all hard wired), x10 device network services ( friend said "hackers like this one on" ) Automatic update ( I hate microsoft patches on patches that cause crashes ) and messenger ( anti spam ).

Sometimes with windows it best to blow it away and reinstall new. I do this about 2 times a year. A neat little trick to this is to install windows on a small drive or a partition of about 20 gig, save any programs you like on some other dive, install all programs on a different drive ( I use "d" and copy all programs and drivers I use on "e" for later quick install.) After I format "C" I install windows and my internet services I then go to windows update and let in install the most up to date files and drivers (I'm safe behind my hardware fire-wall for now ). After that I go to "e" drive and install my fire-wall anti virus programs ( this way they will not react to windows updates). I do not return to windows update for any other patches. Doing this I can finish with a complete windows re-install in a short time, and with no stress.

I hope this helps







[This message has been edited by dfe (edited 06-10-2004).]