Taming and Tweaking Windows Vista Services

by Ed Bott  |  May 19, 2008 10:55am PDT  |  Image 1 of 7

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001_processes_tab_with_uac.jpg

Use Task Manager to see running processes

By Ed Bott

The default view of Task Manager, shown here, lists only the processes running under your user account. To see processes running under service accounts, click the Show processes from all users button in the lower left corner.

For a detailed discussion of when and how to manage services, see Fixing Windows Vista, Part 4: Get smart about services
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Contributr
Wrong
Ed Bott 12th Nov 2008
Show me one single documented instance where the Prefetch or Superfetch capability has been used as a source of transmitting viruses. In seven years of studying XP and two years with Vista, I have never seen one such instance. Not one. It's possible that a virus might store code in the Prefetch folder (although again I have never seen a documented instance of this), but in that case the proper response would be to eliminate the malicious code, not the folder itself. If you found a virus in your Documents folder, would you delete the folder and all its contents?

Bad advice, based on a misunderstanding of the way Windows works.
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Damnit ed....
Spiritusindomit@... 20th May 2008
Stop telling people to disable superfetch. Disabling superfetch reduces system performance overall, having it enabled also significantly reduces neccessary disk defragmentation, which saves you gobs of time.
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It looks to me...
jbaviera@... 20th May 2008
as though Ed was only using "Superfetch" as an example, NOT telling people to turn it off. He did say to follow the link for a list of services that can be turned off.
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Yes Disable Super \ Pre Fetch
pounder_arthur@... 12th Nov 2008
Whilst removing Super & Pre Fetch will certainly "reduce" the performance of the machine, I honestly doubt whether many users would notice the difference unless you told them.

The additional advantage is that you would not need to clear these stores should in the unlikely event that, a user introduce a virus, or malware, upon the machine.

As an old friend of mine would say it horses for courses

Arthur
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Contributr
Wrong
Ed Bott 12th Nov 2008
Show me one single documented instance where the Prefetch or Superfetch capability has been used as a source of transmitting viruses. In seven years of studying XP and two years with Vista, I have never seen one such instance. Not one. It's possible that a virus might store code in the Prefetch folder (although again I have never seen a documented instance of this), but in that case the proper response would be to eliminate the malicious code, not the folder itself. If you found a virus in your Documents folder, would you delete the folder and all its contents?

Bad advice, based on a misunderstanding of the way Windows works.
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Contributr
I show this as an example. If you read the full, linked article, you will see that I recommend against it for most people.

Follow the link.
don't think you need the ATI Catalyst Contol Center running at all times. On my laptop, that was off in one minute. I see you like things on the taskbar like everyone else.

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ie8 fix

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