Which StartUp Items/Sevices are necessary?

[snsd]

Hi:

I have an older PC and am wanting to keep the number of services running to an absolute minimum to save on resource usage. I would like to verify which StartUp Items/Services are absolutely necessary to keep Avast! 4.x Home Edition running optimally.

From doing a little research, my assumption is that ashMaiSv.exe, ashWebSv.exe, aswUpdSv.exe, and AshServ.exe are critical components and assuming that one is using an email client such as Outlook and a browser such as IE or Firefox that all of these services are critical. The one item that I'm wondering about is ashDisp.exe. Does this StartUp item do anything other than display the taskbar icon and automatic update window? If that's all it does, is there any implication whatsoever if it does not run at start-up (via a registry tweak) or is disabled manually via the Windows TaskManager? I just don't see the need to take up a precious 5MB of memory for a taskbar icon that I hide anyway and a virus update pop-up window that I find a tad irritating.

Thanks in advance for any insight.

Dave

[igor]

In adition to displaying the icon and update messages, it also displays the virus dialog (if a virus is detected), so I'd rather keep it as it is.
As for the memory usage: you cannot simply add the values from various processes. The processes share many common modules, so the actual memory usage is lower then what you see in Task Manager, or whatever you use. So, you would hardly gain anything by disabling the ashDisp process.

[snsd]

Thanks for the incredibly fast and helpful response!

Dave

 

[DavidR]

avast is relatively light on system resources, but what you use is totally dependant on your needs/use.

Use the VM Size in Task Manager, this is a more accurate indication. There are more resource hogs than avast's services/providers, currently firefox is showing a VM Size of 52.5MB, more than the combined total of all avast's services/providers (that I use) of about 25MB.

The ashDisp.exe isn't just an icon on the system tray, it is the GUI interface to the various elements of avast.

I suggest you look at the other programs and services that are running at startup and see if they are indeed essential, rather than start when required and close when finished. Check out this link for info on XP services - http://www.beemerworld.com/tips/servicesxp.htm

Unless you have reached a physical limit to the amount of RAM you have installed, the best solution would be to install more RAM.