Im using this sweet tool for keeping my Windows in CHECK

Glary Utillities
http://www.glarysoft.com/?src=10002

i've been using the free version for over 1 year now on my Win7.

Using it should make it easy for the OP to tweak to needs.

 

@Pinkman, agreed. I never liked the MSConfig (lol @ misconfig!) route myself as well. Just didn't seem to be an "elegant" way to do it. I usually resorted to regedit of the run keys (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run , etc.) but be careful in there. Good idea to backup that key before going deletion crazy!
That link is very useful. It contains the shortnames required by the NET command for creating a custom services stop batch file. I plan to run this batch prior to doing any audio work that I know is going to be taxing on the processor. When my mixes get "towards the end" I'm having to bounce a lot of the effects busses to audio tracks because I like to place an instance of Gold on them prior to finalizing and if I don't, I get static city once the 1st core hits 100%. This may allow me to work with more "live" tracks concurrently. I really need to upgrade this old Phenom.
Does anyone know if stopping a service actually removes it from memory/frees up some system memory. Googled it, but could readily find any information about that.

 

You'll need two types of commands:
For normal programs: taskkill /f /IM PROGRAM.EXE
For System Services: sc.exe Stop SERVICENAME

To find the Service names use the SERVICES utility (or search for "services" +Enter). Don't forget parenthesis's for names with spaces.
For the program names use Task manager

so, a part of my batch reads:
...
taskkill /f /IM TSClientB.exe
taskkill /f /IM TscHelp.exe
sc.exe STOP "AfterFLICS v3"
sc.exe STOP DragonSvc
...

save it as "Audio.bat"
And start it as Admin (or use a link on desktop with Admin rights)

 

Yes! And there is always some (or a lot of) debris remaining, even when they uninstall everything.

So a good idea is to make a backup prior to an installation and a recovery afterwards, if the new program doesn't behave like desired. This way Windows can have a much longer lifespan until reinstall.

 

I was just going to post a link to Black Viper's website. It's the best for finding which services you don't need. Thanks @Pinkman!

 

like my mother used to say
"nothing on systray, happy everyday"
you're right Sinewave i'm not technical, i'm a user and i have 2 rules ;o)
-never install anything i don't use and checked before, my friend thenet is wonderfull for that
-have softs portable as many as possible. liberkey on a sd card with alternatives softs against the devourer of ram and
process like itunes 3 process behind the scene.
tweeking windows is a bit complicated and u have to understand what is what.
mem reduc i didn't have to install anything 300k in memory and that's it
it doesn't work? direction "poubelle" it's a freeware made by a guy who seems genuinly happy to share check it out :
http://www.henrypp.org/about
anyway, i don't know him but his soft works well and seems well reviewed.
i have in my systray antivirus, apls, ipmidi to sync two pc if i have the need of more power, the external sound card and that's it. a dell laptop pro séries and everything is working fine, no reinstall since 3 years.
adios and cheers from spain...