Shhh ... unplug Microsoft's "HAL"
In the film classic 2001, a Space Odyssey, Dr David Bowman (played by Keir Dullea) is forced to shut down the spaceship's highly advanced main computer (affectionately named Hal) after it purposely killed Dr. Frank Poole (played by Gary Lockwood), purportedly in self defense. Those of us who work and operate in the Microsoft realm of operating systems and software have similar dreams of turning off runaway features that are either meant to make our lives easier (but don't) or are meant to phone home to rat us out to big brother Microsoft. This is a primer to clue you in on what, specifically, you can unplug and get away with it without serious consequences.
Once again, I thank TechRepublic.com for this terrific resource, which is offered free simply by registering on their website and searching for "Windows XP services that can be disabled." Oh yeah, and I'm not responsible if your computer catching fire or some other catastrophe happens as a result of following these leads. The full report has 6 times more features listed ... I have just excerpted a few. Some, I have tried and others I have not tried as yet. So caveat emptor ...
You can usually find these features by doing a search of your hard drive, or looking in your Control Panel:
AUTOMATIC UPDATES
This should either be disabled entirely, or at least set to alert you BEFORE downloading and installing updates. If you choose the later, be sure and refuse updates that "authenticate" the license of Microsoft products you use. Rene Agredano wrote an excellent Tech Beat article on this subject that is worth a read.
CLIPBOOK
Disable this feature that shares information with remote computers.
ERROR REPORTING
This annoying gizmo tattles to headquarters every time there is a conflict or a mistake. Disable it, or at least choose "Don't Report" if it asks permission.
MACHINE DEBUG MANAGER
This allows a software called Visual Studio to debug programs and it should be disabled.
MESSENGER
Another tattletale that sends Net and Alerter service messages and should be disabled.
NETMEETING REMOTE DESKTOP SHARING
This nasty critter allows other computers to assume control of your computer if you use MS NetMeeting features. Unplug it.
PERFORMANCE LOGS AND ALERTS
This collects performance information in a log. Drop it.
REMOTE DESKTOP HELP SESSION MANAGER
Unless you plan to call Microsoft and ask their technicians to take over your computer, disable this feature.
ROUTING AND REMOTE ACCESS
Unless you are on a network that shares LAN, WAN or VPN protocols, all this does is allow others to burrow into your system to do what they wish. Disable it.
TASK SCHEDULER
Unless you use this feature to do stuff at different times, such as defragment your hard drive at midnight or dump your recycle bin at 8am, it's just a potential time bomb that hackers can use to mess with your system. Whack it.
TELNET
Did you know that if your computer is on, that someone could use this to log on and run programs? Unplug it.
OK, now you can go out and play safely. If you get into trouble, find a 12-year-old child to get your system running smoothly again.
Chris Crawford
www.justiceserved.com