Track down "dying" processes

Now "dying" isn't quite the right word, but let me explain.

When I start my Vaio I get about 67-69 processes running/loading up, after a little while (if do nothing) this will drop to 62 (which I think is quite good).

Now: How can I track down the processes that start automatically only to be shut down a litte later? I suspect its some update this or other stuff...

I've done some "tweaking" - adobe quickstart, quicktime and the likes don't load on my Vaio by default.

My key problem with addtional processes is that they take up extra time when booting up Windows - and as I do not use them I don't want them to boot.

Does anybody know of a tool that will give me a list of all processes loading at startup? (inluding possibly services)

I know that hijackthis does this - but the logfile goes on for ever and its very troublesome to compare that with "currently runnign processes"...

Thanks a lot in advance!

 

Sysinternals has a bunch of utilities that let you monitor your system and processes.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/default.aspx

 

The Process Monitor & Explorer are of little use as they only monitor current processes.

But autoruns.exe is great. Thank you very much for making me aware of that!

(and to think I've got the sysinternals suite ... +Rep for you)

 

You should be able to "capture" the data from Process Monitor or Process Explorer every couple of seconds to a text file, and then by process of subtraction be able to count off which processes have terminated, and when.

Even better, now that I think of it, is to set up a custom log in the event log manager that will log processes at startup and then write a log event every time one of those processes terminates.

 

Actually - that is a good idea. Let's see if I'm able to do that.
Edit update:

Windows already logs all starting processes... but its such a long list...

 

That's where a little judicious scripting comes in handy - at separate intervals, save the logs to a text file (easiest is a different file for each save), and then have the files compared against each other so that entries that are in both logs are removed, leaving only the entries that have changed from one log to the next.

 

And how do I do that? I have no idea about programmig because the tiny Visual Basic bit I did went wrong way to often and lies years back... Java Script never wanted to work in school either...

 

62 processes is still kind of up there in my opinion. I've got mine down to 45 IIRC and I am sure I could trim off more if I really wanted too. Maybe take a look at the Black Viper page ( http://www.blackviper.com/WinVista/servicecfg.htm). I also like these tweak guides.

www.tweakguides.com/TGTC.html
http://www.tweakhound.com/vista/tweakguide/

Good luck!

 

Well, I supose yo can get it further down - my only worry is that I deactivate something I need in the future...

 

I hear ya, I feel the same way. Which is why I went with a conservative approach to killing processes. And both tweakhound and Black Viper do a good job of informing you about which you might want to leave if you are not sure, and what each service is for.

 

Without any tweaks, my Vaio runs 45-50 processes at boot.

 

How do you manage that ??
I think mine was well over 70 just off the recovery DVDs...

 

Some tweaks that you may try with services is to set to Automatic (Delayed-Start) services that you know you don't need right away (Like Media Center or Apple's Bonjour).

Another thing worth looking is the Task Scheduler to see what tasks are started during the User Logon.

 

This is with a clean install. Also before that I cut down any unnecessary Sony bloat processes.

 

I don't have a media center Vista Business - and Apple is shut down anyway.

Now.... my EOS uitility died on me :cry: But that's off topic.


Task Shedulrer - went through that and "kicked out" Vaio Update (you disable it elsewhere and it still loaded...)