MSConfig Profiles (for Gaming) - Why is this so hard to find!?

[guptasa1]

Hey all,

So, just set up a clean install of XP (needed it), and I have a question that I thought was simple, but I can't seem to find a good answer to.

I'm a gamer, and when I run games, I like to turn off nonessentials (all stuff I don't want running most of the time is already disabled, but there's a lot of stuff that I like to run normally that doesn't NEED to run when I play games). Obviously a clean boot is my best option.

I know about MSConfig and Selective Startup, and this is a good option, EXCEPT every time I want to do this, as far as I know I have to run msconfig, then go in and pick and choose everything I want to run every time. Obviously this is a pain to do.

I would *think* it would be a simple matter to make a couple of profiles..."Normal" and "Gaming" for example, where the choices are saved, and it would be a matter of a click or two to switch between them, but I'm having a heck of a time finding something like this.

I see there are several "Startup Managers" out there, but several of those don't seem to support profiles, are by companies I know little about as far as how reputable they are, and the one I tried before (shareware) seemed to mess a few things up and not work as well as it should. (Which I don't want to do on a brand new install.)

Isn't there a simpler option for this? Any help and/or suggestions would be appreciated!

Thanks,
Shaun

 

[xtknight]

It's hard to find because the miniscule performance difference isn't worth most people's time to code such a program. It's possible hardware profiles (right click My Computer, Properties, Hardware tab) will allow you to choose a Normal or Gaming one at bootup. As far as I'm aware, they encompass services/drivers.

 

[guptasa1]

Hmmm, I'll check into the hardware profiles, but I think I looked at that a bit ago without much luck (I want to configure startup programs as well). I will check again tho.

And believe it or not, I do notice a performance increase (as well as fewer crashes in some games, particularly older ones for some reason), if I do this.

Some of the things normally running in the background are pretty resource intensive. And there are a few that can't be turned off once loaded (but most of those aren't major).

Thanks much for the response, and I'd certainly appreciate any others.

 

[Lord Evermore]

Most of the Services that run don't actually use any CPU time and very little memory when they're not actually DOING anything, which is pretty much all the time. A "clean boot" in XP isn't nearly as big a deal as it was with DOS or Win9x. Pretty much everything related to those services will get dumped into the pagefile if you start to need more memory for your gaming, as the data isn't actively being used for anything.

Where did you get this idea that you needed to have a "clean boot" to get good gaming performance? Notice that not a single other enthusiast has ever even thought of this as a possibility. Unless you've got some odd services that are always running and always using CPU time and lots of memory, there's not a lot of point to disabling any just for gaming sessions.

On the plus side though, you don't really need to have "profiles" or even reboot. You can do everything right in Windows.

To start or stop a service in Windows, use the command net stop <service> or net start <service>. You can get a list of the exact names you need to use for the services from the Registry, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services. Make a batch file that stops the services before you game, and another that starts them up when you're done. (Note that there are a very few that don't like to be stopped while the system is running, so they may not actually stop even when you run the command. Those are rare though, and of course still don't really use any CPU time or much memory.)

You can use the taskkill command in Windows in the batch file to shutdown any background applications that start up automatically, if you can't just shut them down from the system tray or do it from Task Manager. taskkill /f will just nuke the process. For instance "taskkill /im notepad.exe" will try to shut down the program, and you'll get the usual prompts to save your file before closing, but "taskkill /f /im notepad.exe" will just kill it. (The /im switch is what tells the command the next item is the name of the program. Use taskkill /? to get details.)

 

[guptasa1]

Thanks for the reply.

Most of the services I'm talking about are 3rd party, or drivers/applets and such I don't need (printer or webcam for example), or things that prolly took up a small amount of memory while starting but probably didn't need to. And yes, I can exit out of *most* via the system tray (virus scanner's the biggy). I'm not talking about most of the Windows services as much, but I have quite a bit in my tray that runs.

I have seen others talk about doing a clean boot for best gaming performance, but most places I've seen that refer to using MsConfig.

I dunno. Last time I did this (with that program that worked but did a few flaky things), it did help prevent some slowdown/crashing issues with one of my games (only one I was playing at the time). Granted, that may have just been one thing throwing it off, but I just prefer to have the system as clean as possible when gaming. And I had already been closing down everything I could via the tray when playing the game previously, so it wasn't something from there. But, maybe with a clean install, that won't be necessary.

Anyways, if anyone *does* do this, still appreciate any tips you have, but I can make do until then. I really don't want any more shareware utilities to do it (might consider reputable freeware tho').

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: guptasa1
Thanks for the reply.

Most of the services I'm talking about are 3rd party, or drivers/applets and such I don't need (printer or webcam for example), or things that prolly took up a small amount of memory while starting but probably didn't need to. And yes, I can exit out of *most* via the system tray (virus scanner's the biggy). I'm not talking about most of the Windows services as much, but I have quite a bit in my tray that runs.

I have seen others talk about doing a clean boot for best gaming performance, but most places I've seen that refer to using MsConfig.

I dunno. Last time I did this (with that program that worked but did a few flaky things), it did help prevent some slowdown/crashing issues with one of my games (only one I was playing at the time). Granted, that may have just been one thing throwing it off, but I just prefer to have the system as clean as possible when gaming. And I had already been closing down everything I could via the tray when playing the game previously, so it wasn't something from there. But, maybe with a clean install, that won't be necessary.

Anyways, if anyone *does* do this, still appreciate any tips you have, but I can make do until then. I really don't want any more shareware utilities to do it (might consider reputable freeware tho').

This, along with the rest of Black Viper's nutty theories, has been widely debunked.

I suggest buying enough memory so you have at least 1GB, then simply enjoying your PC. This sort of thing is unnecessary nowadays.

 

[spherrod]

Originally posted by: dclive

Originally posted by: guptasa1
Thanks for the reply.

Most of the services I'm talking about are 3rd party, or drivers/applets and such I don't need (printer or webcam for example), or things that prolly took up a small amount of memory while starting but probably didn't need to. And yes, I can exit out of *most* via the system tray (virus scanner's the biggy). I'm not talking about most of the Windows services as much, but I have quite a bit in my tray that runs.

I have seen others talk about doing a clean boot for best gaming performance, but most places I've seen that refer to using MsConfig.

I dunno. Last time I did this (with that program that worked but did a few flaky things), it did help prevent some slowdown/crashing issues with one of my games (only one I was playing at the time). Granted, that may have just been one thing throwing it off, but I just prefer to have the system as clean as possible when gaming. And I had already been closing down everything I could via the tray when playing the game previously, so it wasn't something from there. But, maybe with a clean install, that won't be necessary.

Anyways, if anyone *does* do this, still appreciate any tips you have, but I can make do until then. I really don't want any more shareware utilities to do it (might consider reputable freeware tho').

This, along with the rest of Black Viper's nutty theories, has been widely debunked.

I suggest buying enough memory so you have at least 1GB, then simply enjoying your PC. This sort of thing is unnecessary nowadays.

:thumbsup:

 

[guptasa1]

KK. I'll take your word for it and won't waste my time with this stuff anymore (I do have 1 GB of RAM). To be fair, on my last install I was using a virus scanner I wasn't happy with (each version got worse), so that may have been the problem (though I did disable it). Switched to Trend Micro and I'm much happier.