Is it safe to susped non-essential Windows processes/services ?

Hey,
i was thinking... there are a lot of useless services, that are running on background. For some services startup parameters are greyed out. You can change that in registry. But i heard it is not good idea to turn these off: e.g. One Sync, Contact Data, HTTP Web Proxy Auto-Discovery etc. In particular these services, which have weird appendix like 5ec88... I turn only off - services which i know, or which shouldn't affect anything. Also i don't know why Microsoft Passport can't be turned off, i am not using smart cards. Or something like Sync Host, or Contact Data.

So i don't wanna turn off services, which are greyed out in regedit, even these are not core system services. But could affect something, similarly like with Cortana. So what about suspending them, according this article, you can suspend services. I didn't know that - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/microsoft.powershell.management/suspend-service?view=powershell-7

Also you can suspend processes for sure, so i was thinking what about suspending some windows processes, under which these services running, so they don't consume CPU cycles and don't cause input lag. Unless multiple services are grouped under same svchost, but that can be checked with process explorer. Would that be safe to do, instead of just disabling them ?

Btw anyone know what is Display Policy service, or Display Enhancement service ? And whether it is needed for anything ?

dalchina said:

Basic question... why? If they are only using RAM, and no other resource (CPU, disk, internet) they need not concern you.
How, exactly, do you know which ones are useless?
Best leave well alone.

No that's the thing, they are not only consuming memory. They consume cpu cycles, or cause input lag for reasons i can't explain to you, because of something technical. For example: it is known that DWM, or HID service cause huge input lag. You can feel mouse is snappier when you turn these off. Even professional players turned these off. You logically want least processes, which can potentially consume cpu, or cause input lag. I have program, which can measure mouse polling handling time by OS. After i closed multiple services, i got better results. While there will be always variations on dynamic system, i did many tests previously and not even single one was that low.

I don't want to break something within system, so i thought to suspend temporary these processes isn't as bad.

Safety is always relative.

There are risks in disabling or suspending services. The problem is that there is no publicly available documentation that fully documents what every service does. It is known that some services do things beyond what is documented and or could be reasonably guessed. The extent of this is unknown. And with an OS under active development such as Windows 10 this could change with any Windows update. Microsoft of course does not document changes to undocumented functionality.

I would guess that suspending a service would be safer than disabling it. A suspended service could theoretically be started if it was needed. Whether that will actually happen is another matter. It is not documented that it would.

But I must emphasize that this is just a guess. Without full documentation from Microsoft, which does not exist, that is all anyone can do.

If you manipulate services for the sake of performance you must accept the risks.

dalchina said:

I'm sorry to hear of your problematic experience.

It's not mine.

Anyway, make sure you have good backups before making changes. Keep a record of your changes. See
Black Viper's Windows 10 Service Configurations | Black Viper | www.blackviper.com
and have fun.

What i have no problems with services. But microsoft force them running and it is not good for gaming, to have these in background. They cause OS to handle polling from the mouse more slowly.

LMiller7 said:

There are risks in disabling or suspending services.

Well that's what i wanted to hear, if it is safe or not. So i leave them be since, there is nothing i can do about it...