Your system feels sluggish, but Task Manager doesn’t show anything unusual. That’s because many performance hogs hide under Windows background services—running silently, auto-starting, and stealing CPU or RAM.
Here’s how to uncover and disable them safely.
Step 1: Open the Services Panel
Press Win + R, type services.msc, and hit Enter. You’ll see a long list of services with startup types and statuses.
Sort by Status or Startup Type.
Step 2: Safely Disable These Services (Unless You Rely on Them)
| Service Name | What It Does | Safe to Disable? |
|---|---|---|
| SysMain (Superfetch) | RAM preloading for apps | Yes, on SSD systems |
| Connected User Experience | Telemetry collection | Yes |
| Windows Search | Indexing for search bar | Yes, if rarely used |
| Fax | Legacy fax machine support | Yes |
| Remote Registry | Remote editing of registry | Yes |
| Touch Keyboard and Handwriting Panel | Tablet input | Yes, if not on touchscreen |
Right-click → Properties → Startup type: Disabled
Click Stop if currently running.
Step 3: Use Autoruns for Full Background App Control
Download Autoruns from Microsoft Sysinternals.
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Launch as Admin
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Go to the Logon, Scheduled Tasks, and Services tabs
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Uncheck any unneeded entries (e.g., Adobe, Google Updater, Java Update)
Step 4: Clean Startup Programs in Task Scheduler
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Open Task Scheduler
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Check “Task Scheduler Library”
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Disable:
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AdobeGCInvoker
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OfficeTelemetryAgent
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Any manufacturer bloatware
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Step 5: Monitor With Resource Monitor
Use resmon to check background disk, network, and CPU usage. This helps you identify services that still trigger after disabling startup status.
Real-World Result
On a mid-tier laptop, disabling telemetry, Search indexing, and three manufacturer services reduced background RAM use by 700MB—and shaved boot time by 11 seconds.
These services weren’t malicious—but they weren’t helping either.