So many processes running at once...are they all necessary?

I'm a newb to computers, for the most part, and was wondering why my
machine needs so many processes running. I have 30 running now and I
find it hard to believe that the machine needs them all. I had assumed
that I had a fairly simple setup. I have lost a lot of speed,
especially when saving anything to disc. A friend, in passing,
mentioned that I should keep my system tray fairly empty and to check
the number of processes running at one time. Is there somewhere I can
find out what these processes actually do? Only a few seem to tell you
what they are for in their truncated name. Any help will be greatly
appreciated.

 

i got mine down to 28...........but 30 seems to be good if u can get away
with it

 

30 processes is not extremely much. Process Explorer <www.sysinternals.com>
can give you more information about what these processes are.

 

I don't think this will help you much, but it pleases me:-

..-----
| top - 11:25:07 up 3:14, 1 user, load average: 0.13, 0.06, 0.04
| Tasks: 106 total, 1 running, 105 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
| Cpu0 : 1.0% us, 1.3% sy, 0.0% ni, 97.7% id, 0.0% wa, 0.0% hi, 0.0% si
| Cpu1 : 1.0% us, 1.3% sy, 0.0% ni, 97.7% id, 0.0% wa, 0.0% hi, 0.0% si
| Mem: 514688k total, 460360k used, 54328k free, 44908k buffers
| Swap: 2281148k total, 2704k used, 2278444k free, 142432k cached
|
| PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
| 6264 root 15 0 166m 18m 5624 S 0.8 3.7 2:38.99 X
| 7338 mark 19 0 27868 20m 7884 S 0.3 4.0 1:04.44 net_applet
| 7297 mark 15 0 18948 10m 7348 S 0.2 2.0 0:09.63 xfce4-panel
| 7303 mark 16 0 25948 9.8m 7184 S 0.2 1.9 0:23.51 gkrellm
| [...]
'-----

 

In case that isn't obvious, it means that my system had 106 'processes' on
the go at that moment and was barely even ticking over.

It takes lots of "things" working together to get an operating system to
work and provide a usable user interface, even before you actually start
to do anything with it. Of course, Windows is horribly inefficient but
that's the price you pay for being able to run all those lovely viruses
and spyware )

 

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=314056
http://www.liutilities.com/products/wintaskspro/processlibrary/allprocesses/

http://www.eff.org/Privacy/printers/list.php

(just thought I'd throw that in)

http://fine.tok2.com/home/heto2/02604HijackThis/TaskList/ParaA.htm

http://www.processlibrary.com/

http://www.x-raypc.com/

Black Viper here:
http://www.dead-eye.net/WinXP Services.htm

http://startup.networktechs.com/













--

Let the unseen day be. Today is more than enough.

___Sador the carpenter to Turin
Tolkien, The Unfinished Tales

Ellis_Jay

 

Glad to see that someone is mirroring that again. BlackViper's site was one
of the best.

 

Don't judge the OS just by having those running; in a way, it's just
being informative about all the many things an OS and GUI does for you.
(And then MS took much of it away by giving them the same description?)

Look at it this way; it's like a lot of the parts of a car engine are
being named in separate listings, even though they are working
together. It isn't just one listing for 'engine,' but listings for
'alternator,' 'carburetor,' 'fuel regulator,' and so on.

Some of them are optional processes. And it still helps if you learn
which ones are normal system processes, so you can recognize when one
is unwelcome.

Apps, too, might have more than one process to make them run. Some
tools might even add something that runs from startup. And that is one
reason why users should learn that the processes running affect you
efficiency. It is easy to get the system bogged down in extra, junk
processes.

 

Isn't it annoying when so much energy is put into a thread and then the
original poster never returns?

 

Hiya strumpling.

I'd call that a successful troll. Wouldn't you?

I've seen more trolls in this group that any other in the 11 years I've
been on Usenet

 

I'm the original poster and I have returned.. I was simply checking
out the many websites I was directed to. I am not a troll. I do not
waste the time of those kind enough to respond to my pleas for help. I
do not piss away advice. I treat it with the respect and admiration
that anyone should give to those intent on help.. I thank those of you
who took the time to respond.

 

sweet so everything's good?

 

Perfect, thanks. Thought all those processes must be slowing
downloading, turns out it was a Firefix bug. Got it fixed.