SAFE SERVICES

What can you disable without risking the integrity of your system? Given the large number of Windows 10 services, the safe list is surprisingly short, but it can make a big difference to system efficiency. You can safely set Print Spooler to disabled if you don’t intend to use a printer, or IP Helper if you’ll be sticking to IPv4 and don’t mind dropping IPv6 compatibility. If you don’t use workgroups, TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper is safe to drop, and if you’re not networking at all, the Distributed Link Tracking Client can be disabled. Note that using NTLite for this (as an example) doesn’t remove these services, it just switches them off. You can perform the same actions on a running system through the Administrative Tools section of Control panel.

Other things that won’t cause problems when disabled are: the trio of Connected User Experiences and Telemetry, Diagnostic Policy Service, and Diagnostic Tracking Service (if you drop one, drop all three); Downloaded Maps Manager (because you probably don’t use Microsoft’s own Maps app); Program Compatibility Assistant Service (you’ll get hassled a lot less without this one); Remote Registry (disabling this is a good thing in terms of security); Secondary Logon; Touch Keyboard and Handwriting Panel Service (unless you’re installing on a tablet); Windows Defender Service (depending on if you’re running your own AV solution); Windows Error Reporting Service; Windows Image Acquisition (WIA) (only relevant if you use a scanner or AIO printer); and Windows Search (drop this only if you know your way around your hard drive and are meticulously neat).