Few Questions About Services

[Brian Isebrand]

hi yall, got a couple questions ....

1. What services do i actually need running? scvhost has like 6 processes
running, each taking about a meg or ram, and i have no idea what lsass,
SMSS, and csrss do, i dont have a printer so can i shut down spoolsv?, and
exactly what is winlogon.exe used for? does it need to take up 3 MB of ram
when i am already logged in?

2. What xp services do i need to let through my firewall? svchost always
want to connect to the outside. when i try lookup up the hostname fom the
ip numbers i always get errors like "not a public ip block" or something
like that.


any help would be appreciated


thanks

[Nicholas]

Brian --

A Description of Svchost.exe in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=3Dkb;en-us;Q314056

Run the command TASKLIST /SVC from a Command Prompt.=20
This will show you what "real" services all those different instances=20
of SVCHOST are supporting, and you can then compare the process=20
IDs from that list with the ones in Task Manager to see exactly what =
they
are.

Services Guide for Windows XP
http://www.theeldergeek.com/services_guide.htm


--=20
Nicholas

-------------------------------------------------------------------------=
---------------

"Brian Isebrand" > wrote in message:
...

| hi yall, got a couple questions ....
|=20
| 1. What services do i actually need running? scvhost has like 6 =
processes
| running, each taking about a meg or ram, and i have no idea what =
lsass,
| SMSS, and csrss do, i dont have a printer so can i shut down spoolsv?, =
and
| exactly what is winlogon.exe used for? does it need to take up 3 MB =
of ram
| when i am already logged in?
|=20
| 2. What xp services do i need to let through my firewall? svchost =
always
| want to connect to the outside. when i try lookup up the hostname fom =
the
| ip numbers i always get errors like "not a public ip block" or =
something
| like that.
|=20
|=20
| any help would be appreciated
|=20
|=20
| thanks
|=20
|

[Mike Mulligan]

Be exceedingly careful when disabling services, and do not change anything
that you are not completely sure you understand. Fiddling with services now
may come back to haunt you months or years from now, when you software or
hardware 'mysteriously' doesn't work.

I often wonder why some posters seem to be so concerned about cutting the
number of services back to some imagined minimum, especially now that PCs
ship with fast busses, huge amounts of RAM (with additional RAM being
inexpensive to add) and fast video cards. What performance gain is there to
be achieved that could not be obtained several times over by moving to a
faster hard disk or a faster video card, or by regularly defragging and
performing other housekeeping?

Nonetheless, I do agree that it's worthwhile to try to understand what all
the services mean, if only to be able to identify when some malicious
software is working as a service.

Mike Mulligan

"Brian Isebrand" > wrote in message
...
> hi yall, got a couple questions ....
>
> 1. What services do i actually need running? scvhost has like 6
processes
> running, each taking about a meg or ram, and i have no idea what lsass,
> SMSS, and csrss do, i dont have a printer so can i shut down spoolsv?, and
> exactly what is winlogon.exe used for? does it need to take up 3 MB of
ram
> when i am already logged in?
>
> 2. What xp services do i need to let through my firewall? svchost always
> want to connect to the outside. when i try lookup up the hostname fom the
> ip numbers i always get errors like "not a public ip block" or something
> like that.
>
>
> any help would be appreciated
>
>
> thanks
>
>

[Gene K]

Brian,
Try either (or both) these two sites for a lot of help and advice about
Windows services:http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_content.htm and/or
http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicescfg.htm
Gene K
"Brian Isebrand" > wrote in message
...
> hi yall, got a couple questions ....
>
> 1. What services do i actually need running? scvhost has like 6
processes
> running, each taking about a meg or ram, and i have no idea what lsass,
> SMSS, and csrss do, i dont have a printer so can i shut down spoolsv?, and
> exactly what is winlogon.exe used for? does it need to take up 3 MB of
ram
> when i am already logged in?
>
> 2. What xp services do i need to let through my firewall? svchost always
> want to connect to the outside. when i try lookup up the hostname fom the
> ip numbers i always get errors like "not a public ip block" or something
> like that.
>
>
> any help would be appreciated
>
>
> thanks
>
>