[IvanJ]

I'm running Vista (and considering upgrading to Win7) and I have a bunch of services that I disabled on startup using msconfig (based on my opinion of the importance of the service, based on the service description).

I finally decided to do it properly - go through every service, google it, and disable/enable it based on what others are saying.

Then I thought about it - there's gotta be a better way. Someone must've built a user-friendly utility that provides service descriptions, easy way to browse them, and control them.

Can anyone recommend such utility, or their best way of getting services/startup programs cleaned up properly?

[zbd21]

I have used the blackviper lists to make adjustments on services.

http://www.blackviper.com/WinVista/servicecfg.htm

[IvanJ]

That again seems to involve manual work going through each and every service.

Is there an easier way?

[Phantom010]

There's Autoruns.

[IvanJ]

Does AutoRuns show services? Does it provide user-friendly description for processes and recommendations a to whether you should disable it or they're needed?

[Jbirk]

SC DELETE SERVICENAME from the command prompt... be careful though because it cannot be undone...

[zbd21]

Or a clean install to how it originally was.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/918884

[IvanJ]

Grr my objective here is to get this done with the least effort on my part

[Phantom010]

Originally Posted by IvanJ

Does AutoRuns show services? Does it provide user-friendly description for processes and recommendations a to whether you should disable it or they're needed?

Yes, Autoruns shows services. It's free anyway, so you could give it a try to see if you like it.