Cull those non-essential services & processes

[Calibrator]

The following screen captures may be of assistance for those wishing to cull some of the non-essential services that normally run following a typical install. I am running Win7 X64 SP1, and my decisions as to which service(s) to cull came mainly from the info found in Black Viper's website.

http://www.blackviper.com/Windows_7/servicecfg.htm

Those running other O/S's will need to amend as appropriate.

Note that my music server is dedicated purely to playback using XXHE only, and as such has NO LAN connectivity whatsoever. Any data transferred onto or from it is done via a Zalman ZM-HDR1 drive bay, or memory stick for smaller files. No virus protection is loaded or needed.

I also disabled a lot of logging activities as discussed in the "How I tweaked my Vista virtually dead" thread, and other tips from within that thread.

Upon startup, there are a few services that normally run for a few minutes to 10 minutes then close, and the screen captures below reflect the system after things have setled down.

If you are in doubt as to the safety of stopping any service, in addition to Black Viper's valuable explanations via the links on the actual process name in his tables, simple google the name and you should get a good idea as to it's function.

There's still debate over the influence of running processes and how they may or may not influence sound quality, but I figure if they ain't running it does no harm and at minimum, frees up resources.

Have fun tweaking !

Regs,

Russ

Ps. I left the screen captures at original pixel size for legibility but used high compression to help those still on dialup modems.

[PeterSt]

Well, something like the below I guess ...
Maybe one service less than yours, but who cares. And this is Vista (32) by accident.

Anyway ... great job for pulling out this nice list ... which will be in 0.9z-4-1. Actually, it already is (again, see below ).

Btw, at the bottom you see a small picture telling that even Audio isn't running anymore. I'm not sure whether this is intentional or unexpected, BUT, the audio for Engine#4 still works ! Not for Engine#3.
At this moment I don't care at all, so please do NOT bother to sort this out (and again, this is Vista).

I will send you an email for some possible further steps.

Great thanks !
Peter

[PeterSt]

Btw, at the bottom you see a small picture telling that even Audio isn't running anymore.

Actually strange. This will be Audiosrv, and I now see it's not in my list of running services. So I guess it must have come along (the stopping of it) with something else ?
Again, no big deal, and I will be able to find how or what, but that audio is actually playing ? ... (KS)

[Calibrator]

I can confirm that AudioSrv and AudioEndpointBuilder services are not needed if you use Kernel Streaming. In fact, with those two services disabled, the option to use Engine#3 is removed from the drop down list in the parameters page. If you use your PC for other, non XXHE purposes, leave those 2 services intact.

Those using the ESI Juli@ card can remove JulaPan.exe (the control panel). Thanks for the tip Peter. To achieve that, fire up Regedit, and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run and delete the entry for it. It may be prudent to export that Run entry in case you want to reinstate it, or simply run JulaPan.exe from explorer on those rare occassions when needed.

Regs,

Russ

[PeterSt]

Hi Russ,

In fact, with those two services disabled, the option to use Engine#3 is removed from the drop down list in the parameters page.

Only AudioEndpointBuilder will do that. Just for your notice. I did *not* check whether all KS devices still can be selected ! (but I assume it can, or otherwise you would have noticed ?).

About JulaPan ... What I did not check either, is whether without it formats will be able to change. So, it all plays, but maybe it's needed to reinstate another sample rate etc. ... ?

Thanks again,
Peter

[Calibrator]

About JulaPan ... What I did not check either, is whether without it formats will be able to change. So, it all plays, but maybe it's needed to reinstate another sample rate etc. ... ?

OK .. just checked that. I queued up a mixture of 16/44.1, 24/48 & 24/96 material and I played each in turn correctly.

Also played DTS back OK.

While on the subject of DTS playback, I mentioned a while back that having some different profiles to call upon with the click of a button would be helpful in cases where playing back DTS was needed. Currently, if you want to play DTS, you have to disable PeakExt, any oversampling and put a tick in Disable Crack Detect. A small selection of customisable profiles would make it much easier.

Cheers,

Russ

[PeterSt]

Oh, I never forgot that, but didn't came further than the screen presets at the time.

Btw, imagine who would have saved this a couple of days of time by now ?
Me.

[Flecko]

Here is a picture of my running sevices. This is a moderate configuration, that allows you, to use internet, firewall and keeps the appearance of windows. There are nearly no harddisk operations, which you can hear. This is most important. On my fresh installed W7 SP1 RC there is no big sound difference noticable between no services at all and the normal services.