Is it safe to delete background running processes?

when running a scan using ad aware i notice there are 29 running processes in the background, what are these? and would it ruin my system performance if I stopped the running processes?.

 

From way back in 2001, Dark Star put up a thread which said on a home PC with Windows XP, you can disable the following running processes without problem:

Alerter
Clipbook
Computer Browser
Fast User Switching
Human Interface Access Devices
Indexing Service (Slows the hard drive down)
Messenger
Net Logon (unnecessary unless networked on a Domain)
Netmeeting Remote Desktop Sharing (disabled for extra security)
Remote Desktop Help Session Manager (disabled for extra security)
Remote Procedure Call Locator
Remote Registry (disabled for extra security)
Routing & Remote Access (disabled for extra security)
Server
SSDP Discovery Service (this is for the utterly pointless "Universal P'n'P", & leaves TCP Port 5000 wide open)
TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper
Telnet (disabled for extra security)
Universal Plug and Play Device Host
Upload Manager
Windows Time
Wireless Zero Configuration (for wireless networks)
Workstation

Additional info can be found at:
blackviper.com/

HTH

Gram

 

Any processes that AdAware detects and reports are safe to remove.

 

Not true. If you meant any spyware that AdAware detects is safe to remove, then you're right. If you're talking about background processes, that's not correct. For instance, there are useful and critical background services such as for Windows Explorer, anti-virus, firewall, networking, etc.