"when a service is launched, if it's not referanced it gives up all it's memory footprint so that's not a real concern"
is this something new in windows 7? I've been shutting down services i dont want ever since xp to speed up boot, free up cpu cycles and memory
it's not new, it's always happened with an nt kernel
the only purpose for turning services off is to speed boot or if you specifically don't want that service
for instance, users once didn't want error reporting for privacy reasons, it wasn't because of using resources, those weren't used unless there was an error
the easiest method for turning off error reporting was ending the service, to me a counter productive excersize
that very example makes the point, turning that service off was of course was a mistake, microsoft definately used those reports to stabalize the nt kernel, I personally think it's irresponsible turning error reporting off
I remember people were going nuts becuase of qos and came up with convoluted methods for turning it off, I said that while qos was not doing anything malignant, the easiest method for getting rid of it was to turn off the service
but that's it, if your computer doesn't referance the service it doesn't use resources, if your computer does referance the service you probably shouldn't be shutting it down
but your boot speed is definately improved getting turning services off, that's about the only benefit
but there is this;
while over time the memory is released that a service not being referanced used, when you first boot that memory is not released, so working sets will wind up bigger for a small period of time if you had services turned off
working sets are increased by referancing differant features of a program, if memory is not under pressure, that feature remains in memory until someone else needs memory that isn't available
if something like that happens those memory signatures not being referanced have long before given their memory to the standby list, it's claimed by the new referance from there
but all of that only happens if you're under memory pressure, if you're not, memory is simply sitting in the standby list wating to be used by either the program that put it on the list or some other program that might be launched or a feature newly accessed
here's an exception whence a person should turn off a service that's othewise automatic;
of course if you have an after market program that's doing the job of the service, both might conflict so turn off the service once you are sure your program does a better job