System Configuration Question (Vista)

Chip Fossa · From: Monson, MA, USA (deceased)

In Administration Tools\System Configuration\Services there are many items listed. Some are listed in the Status column as either Running or Stopped.

Remote Procedure Call (RPC) got my attention and I proceeded to look it up on the web in various places. Most summaries said that it's a vital component, used in running WMP, mass-storage devices, and MP3 players and other things.

RPC is 'stopped', but is checked. All items, BTW, are checked. Checking or unchecking does not change the STATUS. There also are 'enable all' and 'disable all' buttons.

So how can you tell if something is enabled or disabled, if its STOPPED just momentarily, and should I worry about RPC?(cuz, everything seems to run OK)

Do items in SERVICES slow down your PC's start-up time; such as items in STARTUP will do?
_________________
Chip
Williams U-12 8X5; Keyless; Natural Blonde Laquer.

Mitch Drumm · From: Frostbite Falls, hard by Veronica Lake

Chip:

I just took a look at my own services for Vista Home Premium.

A checkmark on the left means that the service is enabled. All of mine are checked (enabled) and the "enable all" button is grayed out. Unchecking any service actuates the "enable all" button. You can toggle back and forth between enable all and disable all to see the checkmarks appear and disappear.

I don't have a "remote procedure call" service listed. I do have "remote procedure call (RPC) locator" and it is stopped.

Right now I have 59 running and 61 stopped out of 120 total. All 120 are checked.

In the "startup" tab, right next to the services tab, I have 7 items checked out of 14.

I would leave services alone unless you have an overriding reason to think they are causing a problem. They take a little bit of system resources and you need some of them to operate. I am not sure how much effect they have on boot up time, but Vista is not as quick to boot and respond as XP was anyway.

Chip Fossa · From: Monson, MA, USA (deceased)

Yeah Mitch,

I do have RPC locater, too. I just forgot to include 'locater' in the 1st post.

Yup, you're right. I'm just looking for trouble. My main reason for poking around was, indeed, to try and make Vista pop-up quicker.

But on the other hand, there are beaucoup items listed all over the PC, in hidden away places so to speak, and sometimes I just want to know what the heck they all do.
And if they're necessary.

I did uncheck one item in Services. It was 'LightscribeService Direct Disc Labeling (Hewlitt Packard'). I think it came bundled with the Kodak AiO printer. I'll never use that labeling. Too much work and ink.

So I unchecked it, and under the 'disabled date' 1/19/2009 was listed. But it's status is still 'running'. Go figure.

Thanks for the input.
_________________
Chip
Williams U-12 8X5; Keyless; Natural Blonde Laquer.

John Cipriano · From: San Francisco

Chip, if you have the LightScribe software then either you have an HP computer (they come with those drives) or you have a LightScribe drive and you installed the software. The labels don't come out of a printer, you flip the disc over, put it back in the drive, and the picture is burned in with the laser. So you can etch a black and white image onto the cover of your disc (not all discs, just LightScribe discs). I like it a lot, I have a LS drive, the only problem is that it takes 20-30 minutes to get the picture sufficiently dark. But it's a neat way to label discs while avoiding those stick-on labels, which are generally a bad idea, IMO.

It's fun. Just check out www.lightscribe.com .

As for services: if you want to stop one, right click and hit stop, or double click and hit stop in the dialog that comes up. Or open a command prompt and type "net stop" and the name of the service, which you will need to know.

Services are programs that run under a different user and don't generally interact with the desktop. They can either be running or not running (started or stopped), and you can restart them. The Automatic/Manual/Disabled property defines what they do when the computer boots up.
Automatic - Always start up
Manual - Only start up if asked by another program or service
Disabled - Never start up, even if asked.

Note that disabling them won't really help your boot time...Vista staggers the service loading so that you can start using the desktop before they're all running. And, like you noticed, disabling a service is not the same as stopping it. Disabling stops it for future boots.

Remote Procedure Call is fairly integral and shouldn't be disabled without a good reason, assuming Windows will even let you. If you don't want a service to load on boot, manual is safer than disabled until you know exactly what the service does, and what will happen when you disable it.

Some of them are obvious...if you disable the print spooler, for instance, you can't print Very Happy

My guess is that you are putting the computer to sleep rather than powering it off completely, so the LightScribe service hasn't had a chance to stop, even though you set it to disabled. Naturally, once you do stop it, the LS software may not function correctly.

Mitch Drumm · From: Frostbite Falls, hard by Veronica Lake

Chip:

Look at your control panel and open "adminstrative tools" and select "services" from the list. It should pop open a list of services.

The status of some of them will show "started".

The "startup type" of most will be "automatic" or "manual".

You can right click any service and look at its properties. You can stop any service on the property tab and also change its "startup type" to disabled if you want to. That may be where you can kill the HP thing for good.

I show 6 as disabled and another 6 as automatic, delayed start. The rest are about evenly split between automatic and manual.

I don't think I have done any fiddling on the property tab, so my configuration should be pretty close to a default Vista install.

Chip Fossa · From: Monson, MA, USA (deceased)

OK, Fellars...

I think there is just a bit of confusion here, to start off.

My posts on SERVICES was derived from the 'service' sector in Sys Config in Admin Tools. It's much different than the SERVICES listed directly in Admin Tools. So I see.

For a while John, I didn't get what you were saying, because I didn't see any of those headings you mentioned in SysConf/Serv.

And LS didn't come with Kodak, but I believe is part of Nero Burn. There are a lot of different programs within Nero 7.

I'm glad you chimed in on LS, because I'm always leery of new tech stuff coming out; as of late. I just don't want more work and hassles, even though the end product is probably fabulous. I'm a firm believer in the K.I.S.S. philosophy. A Sharpie fine-point colored marker does it all for me. It's always refreshing to hear how someone else feels about mutual programs. Makes it seem like you're not alone.

AND - I'm gonna give LS a whirl. I have an Acer PC, BTW.

Mitch, again, thanks for pointing me to the "real" SERVICES sector. Everything is there alright, and the two 'services' are a bit different. I'm still gonna tread lightly though.

Do ya'll feel that it's not gonna matter much taking out a few items? In the bigger scheme of things - it's not gonna make Vista blossom that much more noticeably, right?

Thanks Guys. Oh Well

_________________
Chip
Williams U-12 8X5; Keyless; Natural Blonde Laquer.

Mitch Drumm · From: Frostbite Falls, hard by Veronica Lake

Chip;

Just looking through my PCs list of services, there are some that would never help me, such as:

computer browser: i don't have a network

dfs replication; i don't need to synchronize folders across a network

Ipod service; i don't own one

parental control; i act as my own parent and don't want to give up that control.

Of those 4, none are started. One has automatic startup type and the other 3 are manual.

I just don't think stopping services is going to help you out much. Vista has issues, but it isn't due to which or how many services are running as near as I can tell.

Sometimes it takes 60 seconds for my email program (Windows Mail) to be usable after my desktop appears. Outlook Express with Windows XP would always start within 2 or 3 seconds. I don't think that slow response is going to be affected by services.

Wiz Feinberg · From: Mid-Michigan, USA

Here is my learned opinion about disabling Windows Services that startup with Windows. Unless the Service is running under your logged in user name (as the owner), leave it alone! RPC is used by all kinds of sub-systems and is started and stopped by Windows as it is needed. It should be set to Automatically Start and be enabled at startup.

Services are run by files and sometimes those files get corrupted and the Service stops unexpectedly. This is not a good situation and needs to be troubleshot and fixed.

Sometimes malware impersonates vital Windows Services and this causes instability in the system. These impersonators must be sought out and terminated, and the original files reinstated.

If you want to speed up Windows startup you should disable personal programs and automatic updaters from starting up. Do this from the program's own configuration settings, to avoid unforeseen consequences. Do not halt automatic startup of any security applications or their modules!

Finally, keep your computers updated with all available patches for your primary OS and applications. To see what is out of date run the Secunia Online Software Inspector. It uses Java to scan your computer for out-dated, insecure software and missing Windows patches. Use it often.
_________________
"Wiz" Feinberg, Moderator SGF Computers Forum
Security Consultant
Twitter: @Wizcrafts
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Jack Stoner · From: Kansas City, MO

Right now my Vista 32 system has 80 processes listed. The system has been up for almost a week, without rebooting. I've never had a problem with the number of processes, but I keep a clean and "vanilla" system and do not have some of the programs running that Chip has (from personal e-mails on another issue).

My experience is, unless you have a problem and know what the process is, leave it alone. There is nothing in there for a "novice" to be concerned about.

John Cipriano · From: San Francisco

Chip, I thought you might be talking about that screen because of the check marks, but the naming confused me. It's called msconfig in XP. I haven't used Vista much. I plan on getting caught up when 7 comes out.

Anyway, as you may have seen by now, there is another services panel, called the services snap-in, that you can access by typing services.msc in the search bar (or in a "run" box on XP). My personal experience with services is that I wasn't really gaining anything when I disabled them, but as time went on I learned which features were associated with which service and I backed off from it. For instance, for a little while at the beginning I used to shut off System Restore, but now I see how useful it is, so I don't do that anymore (also older and wiser Very Happy

). There are some rare cases (usually machines with insufficient RAM) where you might want to slim down the services but for a home computer you're better off having the things the services provide. The gains are negligible and you can cause yourself frustration if you forget what you did.

Like Wiz said, the services that belong to your username are generally safe to mess with, but the ones registered to the system (you might see LocalService or NetworkService as usernames) are generally less safe to mess with. Windows Updates in particular is pretty fragile and depend on a few different services to be up.

As for the LightScribe, I suppose it's possible that you have the software without having a drive capable of it. Acer sells machines with those drives so you may or may not have one. The tray of the drive should say LightScribe on it if it has that feature. If it doesn't then it might be a waste to buy the special discs. They do have a nice gold color to them though Smile

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