task
 

when opening windows xp task manager what should be running what shouldnt be running?

you mean default settings? Tweak your services using the guides at www.blackviper.com.

i want to know what xp should have has running when i pop up task manager like explorer.exe

alot of things it depends on what you have loaded. i have 51 proccess on right now, i some times have upwords of 75.

what are you looking for?

what should be in there with a stock install of windows xp without any other thing loaded

It Depends, on waht you have in your system. what are you looking for, we cant help you unless you give us more info

on a stock install of xp, you should typicall see only about 15 processes running, 4 or 5 of which are svchost.exe

others that I can think of: explorer.exe, winlogon.exe, spoolsv.exe, regsvc.exe, system, system idle process, taskmgr.exe, winmgmt.exe....there's a few more, but I can't remember them. if you had to load drivers/software for stuff like network or sound, then you might see a few more. hope that is helpful..

taskmgr is a manual program. Unless your system is somehow different I always have to call it up first, tho it is a good idea to have it running for various reasons and check it everyday for spyware running.


Also I have spoolsv turned off unless I want to print which is rare. It isn't necessary to leave running. Just go to the URL above and read all about what services are necessary and what can be set to manual or even disabled.

btw: NEVER turn off LSASS.EXE!!! it will shut your system down if you do. Winmgt can be killed without any noticable problems.

Let it run it’s not a problem.

It does windows authentication

If you're worried about a particular process, go here:
http://www.kephyr.com/filedb/index.php
and type in its name. Most likely, there will be an entry telling you what it is what what its doing.

Really, you should just leave them all alone unless you see something using up most of your CPU% that shouldn't be. 99% use so little processor time that you don't even notice them being there.

This is awesome, I finally found out what svchost.exe is for.

Thanks for the link.

hahaha, nah our systems are the same. I figured if he was looking at the task manager to see which progs were running, he should expect taskmgr to be in the list :thumbsup:

Task List Programs

This is a great list that I use all the time at on the job.

Yeah, there's gonna be a lot of stuff you've never heard of before. For the most part, its all likely OK. Except....I have ctfmon.exe running...Apparently it activates the Alternative User Input Text Input Processor (TIP) and the Microsoft Office Language Bar. Personally, I don't know why the hell its running. I'm going to hunt it down and change it's name to ctfmon.nowayjose.

TIP: To get to the task list quickly, roll your thumb on CTRL+SHIFT, then hit the ESP key with your middle finger. Badaboom!

Wow...that's a nifty shortcut. No more ctrl+alt+del for me :)