In this guide, we'll tell you which default Windows XP SP2 services are not required and can be turned off for performance without any problems.... In this guide, we'll take a look at the default set of services that come with a fresh installation of Windows XP with Service Pack 2. We'll tell you the ones that you don't need and try to tell you why, so you can disable them without any problems. Each service has three options: automatic, manual and disabled. Automatic is essentially "run at startup"; Manual is a service that is started only when required; Disabled is when a service doesn't start at all. Based on the type of a user you are, there are different settings to recommend, but we'll take the safe route and tell you to disable the services that won't cause important features of your Windows to stop working. If you're comfortable with trying out stunts, you can go ahead and disable some of the other services that aren't mentioned here. If something stops working, you can just turn the service back on - there's no permanent effect. Also, since this is a guide to unneeded services that can be disabled, we won't list the services that are already disabled after Service Pack 2 (like Alerter and Messenger) in an effort to keep the list as simple as possible.

One more thing you have to note is that this list is primarily aimed at home users, so we'll be taking out most of the intranet/network related services that don't affect Internet connectivity. If you're using an office workstation with a proper server and all that jazz, you shouldn't be reading this guide.

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