- Joined
- 8 Apr 2003
- Messages
- 6,376
im on better meds than crack
an idle task doesn't use cpu resources or cause load, so why disable it and cripple the OS?
idle threads don't (usually) have memory that's locked, they have memory that might be claimedIt is not always idle, otherwise why is it running in the first place? An idle thread still has memory resources that are locked, meaning that when the system starts swapping that too might have a chance of getting swapped out.
Why have it running when it is not required? When it provides almost no use?
start program
do some stuff
allocate 100 MB of ram
sleep until someone probes me
your point is correct, except for the part of swapping out to disc being expensice, it't notSo you are claiming that if I did this in pseudo code:
Code:start program do some stuff allocate 100 MB of ram sleep until someone probes me
that when the OS comes under pressure, it is going to take away parts of my 100 MB that i have allocated? No, what it is going to do is swap pieces of my memory out to disk, until my entire program is swapped out to disk. Suddenly something runs and probes me, now everything has to be swapped from disk back into working memory. Even if it is just to index one file before I go back to sleep.
Now this is all theoretical, however the point is that idle processes still waste resources. Swapping data from memory to disk is expensive, which is why you want to avoid doing it in the first place.
We can argue this all we want, I made my choice in turning off stuff I don't require, and I don't consider it crippling the OS. This is not FUD, removing processes from being started in the first place will mean that those resources are available for other things. Will it make a significant impact? Depends.
Vista ran like ****e on my hardware, and as such I now still run Windows XP.
That said, why waste precious resources and CPU cycles when you can disable the service and not have that extra load around? Run the CPU cooler, and have more resources available for running games, and or other hardware intensive apps.