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How windows works

Posted on 27 Jan 2005 at 12:14

The Indexing service is one I have always left alone. However, as with all indexing services - even those that promise not to do anything when the system is busy - it sometimes has difficulty stopping itself. For that reason, game players especially should set the service to Disabled before they play. There is nothing more frustrating than being surrounded by a pack of rampaging nasties and finding you get trampled on because the system cannot see that the game isrunning.

The Remote Registry enables users on remote systems to change the Registry settings on their local system. It is really a tool for administrators if they do hands-on changes or run performance counters, so while it might well be necessary on a network, there is no reason for it to run on a standalone system. Change it from Automatic to Disabled and see if anything complains.

The Secondary Logon is normally used in two ways. The first allows administrators to log on to a system and then run an application. The second is to enable the runas.exe command. This lets you run programs on a system you might otherwise be unable to do - such as being able to access Control Panel functions that are disabled for the current user due to policy restrictions. It is set to run automatically by default, but there is no reason for not adopting the Disabled approach if you are on a standalone system. Obviously, it should be left alone on networked systems.

Conclusion

What's become clear in the course of this feature is that, while there are undeniably some services that could do with being switched off either temporarily or permanently, modern systems are so fast and have so much useable RAM that modifying the built-in services alone is not going to have a huge effect on performance. This is especially the case if you are a business user.

Older PCs may benefit from tweaking, but keep an eye on the non-Microsoft applications running on your PC. These can often make the biggest demands on your memory. But the tools that run in the background of your OS shouldn't be regarded as 'secret services'. Keep an eye on them, and get a better understanding of how Windows works.

Author: David Moss