In an effort to disable Windows Media Player from “sharing” on our home network I delved into the murky world of Windows Services

Running

services.msc

as an admin opens up a whole new world of potential improvements and costly mistakes. Playing it safe I googled a few things I was not sure about.

I stopped and disabled (on startup) both Window Media Player Network Sharing Service and Bonjour. I find the very presence of Bonjour on my system an insult and would consider a swift kick in someone’s balls worthy of the price of a ticket to Cupertino. After a quick check I also disabled the NVIDIA Stereoscopic 3D Driver. I would imagine almost no-one needs that.

Apart from that I switched a few applications from Automatic to Automatic (Delayed) Startup, these were mostly updaters. I absolutely want these to run but I don’t need them urgently enough to start them all at the same time. For example, I don’t need Secunia checking my programs are up to date the very instant I log in but I don’t want to have to remember to do it myself.

Skype Updater
Secunia PSI Agent
LogMeIn
Adobe Acrobat Update Service
Google Updater Service

I am surprised that these services don’t use this setting by default as many similar services do. I was pleased to see that, for example, the No-IP DUC does. At least “small” companies can get it right.