No internet or network connections - what services can be disabled?

[Deanodarlo]

I'm an XP newbie and I must say it's a nice OS. Just finding my feet at the moment.

This may sound mad to some of you, but I duel boot WinME and WinXP using Millennium purely for internet/e-mail whilst going into XP for all other activities. I feel so in control of Win9x kernel in terms of tweaks and optimisation that I thought this would be ideal for a transitional period until I get used to XP.

WinME has the firewall and virus checkers running. It shares a couple of Fat32 partitions with XP for mutual file access. WinME is kind of an easy to maintain broadband and virus barrier to XP and my files. Plus this means XP isn't tied down with constantly running antivirus crap, firewalls, huge service packs etc etc. This may change in the future but ME is just so simple to maintain for internet access, very mature in terms of software/drivers and offers easy control over it's operation.

Since I don't online game, it gives me the best of both worlds.

This means I don't need many XP default services connected with internet access and networking, but I'm unsure which to disable. Auto-updates and Messenger are obvious ones, but even after reading around the net I?m not positive which can safely go in my situation. Some may appear like they can be disabled, but may be used locally for install packages etc.

Any suggestions from XPerts (sorry!).

 

[mikecel79]

Do yourself a favor and ditch ME now and just move to XP for everything. There is nothing in ME that XP does not already do or does it better. Anti-virus and firewalls have such little impact on today's modern PCs it's stupid not to run AV on XP.

As fro disabling services, just disable the Messenger service and you should be set. All these "tweaks" end up causing more problems than they are worth. Makes sure to keep XP up to date, even if you don't surf the internet on it. As long as your network cable is plugged in your connected to the internet.

 

[Deanodarlo]

Thanks for the response.

Yes, I kind of guessed disabling too many default services would gain little benefit and cause more problems, especially on modern PCs.

WinME has always worked fine for me - same as 98SE but added functionality - must have had about 5 BSOD in 3 years. I don't run my PC 24/7 though, only a few hours at a time, which probably explains why.

It's actually impossible for anyone to access XP security flaws through ME. ME can't access the partitions for a start and WinXP has no means of connection or communication to the net (dial-up).

I'll migrate to XP eventually.