Services to Disable in Windows 11

I like to trim down Windows 11 where I can including services, so I was wondering if anyone here is an expert with Windows 11 services and can look at my list of services that I am planning on disabling and tell me if there are any that I am missing or ones that I have chosen that I absolutely cannot disable for one reason or another.

Diagnostic Execution Service

Diagnostic Policy Service

Diagnostic Service Host

Diagnostic System Host

Distributed Link Tracking Client

Fax

Geolocation Service

Microsoft Store Install Service

Network Connection Broker

Network List Service

Network Location Awareness

Offline Files

Print Spooler

System Event Notification Service

SysMain

TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper

Touch Keyboard and Handwriting Panel Service

Windows Event Log

Windows Search

Windows Time

Windows Update

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It mostly depends on how much faster you want it to be broken.

Right. So I don't really want anything to break. I do not care about logs or printers or crap Windows bloatware. With that in mind, what services can I turn off without breaking anything?

SightUp said:

I like to trim down Windows 11 where I can including services, so I was wondering if anyone here is an expert with Windows 11 services and can look at my list of services that I am planning on disabling....

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If you open Resource Monitor, look at Services on the CPU tab and sort by Average CPU, then you'll find that of your list SysMain has the highest CPU use - of less than 0.2%. In fact my total CPU use by all running services is just 2%.



Basically you're not going to gain anything by disabling any of them, as they don't have any significant impact on CPU use.

Just because SysMain (former SuperFetch) uses up a little bit of your CPU resources and a lot of your memory, doesn't also mean that it steals the resources from your other processes like playing videogames. Read up on the concept of InvisiTasking, which allows background processes to use up only those system resources that would otherwise be left unused, so for example if you have Condusiv Diskeeper service running in the background, then it can optimize performance of your HDD (it works for SSDs too, but on a modern SSD the performance gain will typically be negligible) and 1/ you never need to defrag because it prevents HDD fragmentation before it happens, while 2/ it greatly reduces the total number of I/O operations on the HDD in addition to keeping enough free space near the outermost cylinders of the HDD which is where the write speed is higher in comparison to the innermost ones─yet another reason why dividing your HDD into separate partitions never was among bright ideas. SysMain touches on the same principle that preventing I/O at the only sacrifice of using the specific part of CPU and RAM that would otherwise just sit there, doing nothing besides costing a lot of money of course. You see, other processes don't have to wait until these background processes release the system resources that they use. There's no delay there, the other processes take immediate priority.

That being said, with a modern Intel CPU, although this greatly depends on system design, you could say that temperatures should also be seen as system resources. That's just because technologies like Turbo Boost and Speed Shift can be used to increase performance, only temporarily when needed, and in such a way that the heat energy resulting from this temporary increase in power (far above the TDP) has to be throttled back down again after a certain period of time in order not to exceed temperature constraints. These constraints are configurable and can be set by the system manufacturer. Some of the settings are accessible via the powercfg command, some aren't. But that is why I use ThrottleStop. Anyway, my point is that disabling the SysMain service isn't going to have any noticeable impact on temperatures, any more so than homeopathy is. So I'm not too worried.

SightUp said:

I like to trim down Windows 11 where I can including services, so I was wondering if anyone here is an expert with Windows 11 services and can look at my list of services that I am planning on disabling and tell me if there are any that I am missing or ones that I have chosen that I absolutely cannot disable for one reason or another.

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Diagnostic Execution Service - YES
Diagnostic Policy Service - YES
Diagnostic Service Host - YES
Diagnostic System Host - YES
Distributed Link Tracking Client - YES
Fax - YES
Geolocation Service - YES
Microsoft Store Install Service - YES, - YES (IF YOU DON'T MICROSOFT STORE)
Network Connection Broker - YES
Network List Service - YES
Network Location Awareness - YES
Offline Files - YES
Print Spooler - YES (IF YOU DON'T USE PRINTERS)
System Event Notification Service
SysMain - NO
TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper - NO
Touch Keyboard and Handwriting Panel Service - YES
Windows Event Log - YES
Windows Search - YES (IF YOU DON'T STOCK SEARCH) - CAN BE REPLACED WITH "AGENT RANSACK"
Windows Time - YES
Windows Update - YES

SightUp said:

I like to trim down Windows 11 where I can including services, so I was wondering if anyone here is an expert with Windows 11 services and can look at my list of services that I am planning on disabling and tell me if there are any that I am missing or ones that I have chosen that I absolutely cannot disable for one reason or another.

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also you can follow some of mine as per below screenshot (follow the command I have set on DELAYED START, MANUAL & DISABLED);

SightUp said:

I like to trim down Windows 11 where I can including services, so I was wondering if anyone here is an expert with Windows 11 services and can look at my list of services that I am planning on disabling and tell me if there are any that I am missing or ones that I have chosen that I absolutely cannot disable for one reason or another.

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there will be some startups hogging files, for these type of startups you can use "Chameleon Startup Manager" to remove .. the trial version works fine too .. remember not to remove Microsoft Office related startups, as these will affect execution of Microsoft Office components .. Good Luck !

I don't screw around with this stuff as in W7 days..., far too many Dependencies that'll bork the system.
If you do mess around with this stuff then you're probably a power user..., if you're a power user, then you probably have a machine that can handle it.

SightUp said:

my list of services that I am planning on disabling and tell me if there are any that I am missing or ones that I have chosen that I absolutely cannot disable for one reason or another.

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That depends, I guess you are not using MS account, but a local one?
Because without some of them, you might not be able to log into Windows.

My Disabled services. MS account, store, onedrive and windows updates work.

I cannot see any point in disabling any services unless they are giving you problems, they are there for a reason. As @hdmi said It mostly depends on how much faster you want it to be broken. If you have a decent spaced machine it can handle them all with no problem. Disabling may led to problems in the future.

The-Hive said:

I cannot see any point in disabling any services unless they are giving you problems, they are there for a reason. As @hdmi said It mostly depends on how much faster you want it to be broken. If you have a decent spaced machine it can handle them all with no problem. Disabling may led to problems in the future.

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Hi,
Difficult to break what you don't use
All this is personal preference so saying someone is wrong is not very realistic seeing opinions are like anuses we all have one and use it as we choose crazy concept but it's fact

If you learn how to break something, you will also learn how it works and how to fix it.
Like when you take a radio or a car apart and then put it back together. It just takes time.

@ThrashZone It may be difficult to break what you don't use but the OS may use it. who said it was wrong I wonder, but I have have seen it time and time again over the years where you disable/delete things and all is fine but then later it has caused problems further down the line, obviously that is my opinion based on years of tinkering with computers

The-Hive said:

...all is fine but then later it has caused problems further down the line...

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I make a point of only disabling things that can be done through the normal options in Settings or the Control Panel. If Microsoft provide a switch to turn it off, then I'll use it (background apps, for example). But I draw the line at disabling services and the like. I like to think that's one reason I've never needed to do a clean install to fix anything. All my systems just run reliably.

My System One is running an install of Windows that started life in 2011 as Windows 7, took the upgrade to 10 in 2015, then every feature update up to 21H1. Now it's been cloned to a supported machine it has upgraded to Windows 11. I have never had any problems with failed updates, like so many others have complained about. I put that down to not tinkering beyond what MS make easily available.

@Bree I totally agree 100% , same here and also never a problem but this machine has only ever been 10 and now 11

Windows is designed to work in multiple scenarios and hence there are services and scheduled tasks that are important in some of those scenarios, while not so much in others. Disabling the services that are not necessary might not really speed things up, but for some people may give the appearance of a tidier system.

While it's a personal choice, you might keep things as they are. However, I do disable a number of the services and scheduled tasks, since I am absolutely sure I don't need them.

I certainly disable Windows Search (as well as turn off Cortana in Group Policy) - I don't need any indexing and the corresponding SSD writes.

I also disable everything Xbox related - I don't play games and I don't have an Xbox, so why should I keep those things running?

I also disable everything location-related - I cannot prevent websites to guess my location based on my IP (other than using a VPN) but I absolutely hate the idea of location-tuned search results or services provided. Information is not any different regardless of where I am currently located. If I am paying for a service, I see no reason for it to stop working just because I flew on a plane for a few hours.

I also disable telemetry - you might make a case for it if you're on an insider build, but otherwise I have a right to control which bits of information are leaving my computer.

NetBIOS was flagged as a security risk years ago - so I disable it both in the TCP/IP settings and in the services. Maybe it's no longer considered a risk, I haven't checked, but I am doing so for years and have never had a problem.

There are several services that are geared towards corporate environment: offline files, smart cards, connected devices, sync, alljoyn etc. I don't need them because I have a single computer at home and I don't want it talking to anything else on my home network (such as the TV).

Finally, there are features that I simply don't have on my desktop - bluetooth, wi-fi, etc. Again, disabling these does not bring any visible advantage, but what's the point of running a wi-fi service on a computer without wi-fi?

I should also mention that the concept of computer being "idle" is not always interpreted correctly. Very often, I see that Windows thinks the computer is idle if I don't touch the mouse and keyboard for some time. However, all that time the computer may either be doing some calculation or simply showing me something on the screen. To me, that's not idle. On the contrary, that's what the computer is for. And in these circumstances I don't want sudden activity by tasks and services that work "when the computer is idle". Actually, my computer is never idle. When it's idle, it's off.

See this tutorial:

People just do not get it - disabling services is so XP.

I only disable 3rd party services that give annoying check for update messages all the time.

Windows 10 has been well optimised, and my laptop idles at less than 1%, with virtual no network activity, and no excess memory use.

sure you can tweak things to squeeze a teensy extra bit ou of system, but the services have a lot of interdependencies and sooner or later, you will break something and your performance will plummet.


In the end, if you have to ask for opinions, you probably do not have the knowledge. Of course, the one thing everybody neglects to tell you is to make image backups as you go along. This is where incrementals are good to enable you to wind back in a considered manner.

However, in the end the best plan is to leave services disabling well alone unless you can find any real evidence that disabling them actually helps.