The Services You Can Disable to Make Your PC Faster

What services can average user to disable? The following items match two criteria. 1. They can potentially consume lots of resources. 2. They can safely be set to disabled or manual without harmful ramifications. Now keep in mind that none of these are useless. In fact, they can be quite helpful depending on your computer and hardware setup. The idea though, is to seek out those things that really aren't necessary depending on what sort of computing you're doing.

Print Spooler – If you don’t use a printer or every print to a PDF file, you don’t need this. You can set it to Manual just in case if you’d rather not disable it completely.

Bluetooth Support – If you’re not using a Bluetooth keyboard, printer, mouse or phone with your computer, you can disable this. Of course nothing Bluetooth will work anymore and no new devices will be found moving forward until you reactive the service.

Remote Registry – This feature is designed to allow people to make changes to your registry remotely. It can pose security issues if left to automatic and may already be disabled or manual. Disabling the remote registry may cause some problems, so you would likely do best to have it set to Manual.

Remote Desktop – There are three total Remote Desktop services. The safest settings for Remote Desktop Configuration, Remote Desktop Services and Remote Desktop Services UserMode Port Redirector is manual – but this only applies if you don’t need to remotely connect to another computer or allow a remote computer to connect to yours.

Parental Controls – Also called Family Safety, this feature allows you to monitor and control the activities of children on the computer. You don’t need it if you don’t have children, of course. You can disable the service or set it to Manual.

Fax – If you’re not sending or receiving faxes through your computer, you don’t need to leave the Fax service set to Automatic. The safest setting is Manual, although you can select Disabled if you choose.

Windows Media Service Services and Homegroup Services These last two aren't single services, but a series of services, all of which will have labels relating to the Windows Media Service and the Windows Homegroup. These are a collection of services that allow you to support TV and FM broadcasts on the computer, including watching, recording and playing media devices. In particular, the Windows Media Center is a platform that lets you navigate and play your stuff: movies and music. If you don’t use your computer for major media functions, you don’t need these services. They can be disabled.

The Homegroup is a localized computer network. If you don't specifically use the Homegroup, either because you use a different network setup, or maybe just because you don't have a home network, these services can be disabled too.

In the end, it's all about finding the best configuration for your personal system; it is a personal computer after all. Disabling any of the above services will cause no damage to your system or interrupt the way your computer runs. If your system doesn't use any of them, but they're running anyway, just disable them to free up space and processing resources. If you use some but not all, tweak the settings until you find what works for you. The point is to be familiar with the services running in the background.

It doesn't matter if you a tech wiz or an everyday user, managing these services is easier than ever and it's a fast-access tool available to everyone.