Home

So far, we have optimized our virtual memory. We have uninstalled needless programs. We have gotten rid of some of those programs that always run "in the background". Now we need to do more of the same by cleaning up the services. Services are the same as programs, with just a different name. They behave exactly the same, in that they run "in the background". Yes, there's so much stuff that can always running "behind the scenes" on a computer, its no wonder they slow down over time. Well...no longer.

Click Start-->Highlight "My Computer" and right click on it. Then click "Manage"

An alternate way to do this is to right click the "My Computer" icon on your desktop them select "Manage"

At the "Computer Management" window, click the Plus sign that is to the left of "Services and Applications"

Now, click the item that says "Services"

You will see a big list of things on the right. Everything that says "Automatic" means that it is starting up everytime you start windows! Click the column that says "Startup Type" at the top to show all the automatic services together. You can also expand each column to read the lists by clicking and dragging the bars in between them like this:

STEP 2, DISABLE UN-NEEDED SERVICES

Now, for all XP users, we want to take that list we made in Phase III of the services we unchecked. Here is where we can actually disable them. For Windows 2000 users, you will have to go through each "Automatic" service and look them up on Google to see if its something needed.

Now, highlight a service that we identified we do not need. Double click it. You will get a window pop up that shows information about that service. We do not want it to be "Automatic" anymore, so choose "Disabled" in the scroll down list.

Then click APPLY. Then Click OK. Do this for every service we identified earlier. Then when you are all finished, its time to reboot the computer. For windows 2000 users, its important that you make a list of each service you change to "DISABLE" so that in case of a problem, you can simply go back and re-enable it.

You cant go wrong here either. If you disable a service that causes something you need to not work right, you can simply go back later and change it back to "automatic".

Now its time to reboot your computer.

NOTE: Now, I don't want to scare you here, but as someone who has worked with computers for so long, I want to have every contingency covered. It is very unlikely that you could do anything at all to hurt your computer. But, If, by some chance, Windows does not start properly (highly unlikely, but just in case), then as your computer is rebooting (Before you see "windows XP" or "Windows 2000"), at the very beginning, press F8 several times as your computer restarts until you get a boot menu. From the boot menu choose "Last Known Good Configuration" to bring your computer back to normal. You can also choose "Safe Mode" and then re-enable all the services you disabled.

You have completed Phase 4 of the 5 Phase system. We only have one more to go and your system will be fully optimized!