Idle processes?

how many processes do you have on idle?
i have 47

 

I have just as many as are needed to smothly perform the operations for which I bought this machine. What's your point?

Gary

 

i want to know what is the average number of idle processes a normal vista machine have. at 47, it feels a little bloated

 

What counts as an "idle" process?

 

Good point... I agree...

 

There is no "average" number. My point is there are all these "experts" running around on various forums, advising folks that they should try to get their machines down to the least number of processes as possible. And that is just a fools' errand.

Why does it "feel a little bloated" to you. Because of the raw number of 47 processes? That number means absolutely NOTHING. Or is it because the machine is sluggish? If that's the case, then what you need to be concerned with is the amount of CPU being consumed by the processes.

Chasing down some mythical low number of processes will not guarantee a boost in performance at all. In fact it may do just the opposite.

A little history is in order here. Prior to Vista, the memory management model of Windows was such that it only loaded a small number of processes, waiting until the last moment when a process was needed and loading it at that time. Sort of the software equivalent of the Toyota manufacturing philosophy of "just in time inventory". That meant that, often time, large portions of memory went unused. And in fact the "tweaker experts" went on a quest to see who could get the smallest amount of memory used. Yawwwwwn!

Fast forward to Vista, where the engineers suddenly realized, "Hey wait a second. There is all this empty ram sitting there. Folks paid good money for this RAM. Why are we under utilizing this valuable resource." And the Vista memory management model was born. A model that pre loads both processes and applications in anticipation of what will be needed throughout the day. The term "unused memory is wasted memory" describes this well. And before someone jumps in to exclaim, "Oh my, that's horrible. It means there will be no memory available to my precious Photo Shop when I load the 40 mega pixel picture I took of Aunt Minnie's flowers. Whatever will I do now?" Fear not. Any of the tasks, processes and services loaded in this scheme that are not active are marked for paging and can immediately be wiped from RAM as needed to free up space.

So, the bottom line here is forget this notion of reducing this raw process count. Lowering that number is not going to buy you a thing. What you need to be concerned about (if there REALLY is a concern) is CPU use. And of course any processes that are simply a waste in the first place, things like the Adobe Updater or the Google Updater. (Sorry, Adobe and Google but do you REALLY think I need your updater loaded 24 hours a day seven days a week 365 days a year. Come on guys, get with the rest of the civilized programmers of the world and check for updates when I load your program and ONLY when I load your program. Rant mode off.)


Gary

 

Gary,

Rep +

 

I have 39 with touchpad, mouse, speaker drivers, and anti-virus loaded.

 

I have 150+ processes in Windows Vista machine. 3 Users logged in at once. about 20 services are from Vmware. If you including the services inside the virtual machines, i have at least 500 services running.

For my windows XP nettop, i have 49 processes running. In safemode, i have about 10 services running.

In comparison, Vista with 500 services is much more responsive and faster than my network with 49 services.

 

I have 33 processes on my Vista machine

 

My Vaio generally runs 60 plus - I think 70-80 in normal use with a couple of programmes...

Would I like it to be less - yes - can I get it lower - no, because I'd loose some functionality.

I think as Gary said.. what's the point.

The only point I see i getting rid of "bloat-processes" like the real update sheduler - fewer startup processes can mean a faster star-up - and some things you really don't need to load every time... like Real Updates, Quicktime... adobe quickstart...

+ rep Gary

 

if it's idle, it's not bloated. grr.

 

Well, for the most part I agree with that, but (you knew that was coming, right), I think the Google Updater, Quicktime and Adobe Updater are all examples of processes that are inactive most of the time but ARE indeed bloat.

Do I really NEED to have Quicktime preloaded on the off chance that once a week I stumble across a Quicktime file? I can easily live with the supposed delay for Quicktime to load then. Do I really NEED the Adobe and Google updaters loaded all the time? Or couldn't the app just check the next time I load it and tell me an update is available?

These are examples of application arrogance (trademark 2009 G. Shell all rights reserved), "Well MY application is SO important, that I must watch 24 hours a day for new updates." Give me a freakin' break. What would happen if every program took this arrogant attitude? We'd have HUNDREDS of processes doing nothing more than "phoning home" looking for updates. Imagine the boot times then, not to mention the size of the pagefile.

Gary