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You can improve performance of your Windows 2000/XP and reclaim memory by simply disabling the services that is also known as “System Services” you don’t need which Windows 2000 or XP automatically provide by default.

What Are System Services in the 1st place
System services are actually small helper programs that provide support for other larger programs in Windows 2000. Many of the services are set up to run automatically each time you start Windows 2000. However, if you’re not using the larger programs that these services are designed to support, these services are simply wasting RAM that could be put to better use by your applications. While the word “Disable” is used here to describe the idea that you’ll remove these services from memory, what you’ll really be doing is changing the startup setting from Automatic to Manual. When you do, the services won’t automatically start each time you launch Windows 2000 Professional. However, Windows 2000 will be able to manually start the services if they’re needed. That way you won’t be unnecessarily wasting RAM, but you won’t be crippling your system either. Note: If you’re running Windows 2000 Professional on a corporate network, you may not be able to adjust system services. Regardless of whether you can or not, you should check with your system administrator before attempting the make these changes.

Changing the startup type of a service from Automatic to Manual is a relatively simple operation. To begin, open the Control Panel, open the Administrative Tools folder, and then double click the Services tool. When you see the Services window, set the View to Detail if it isn’t already. Then click the Startup Type column header to sort the services by Startup Type. When you do, all the Services that start automatically will appear at the top of the list.

As you scan through the list of services on your system whose Startup Type setting is set to Automatic, look for the services in listed in the Table below. These are some of the services are good candidates to be set to a Manual Startup Type.

Examples of services that can be safely changed to Manual :-

DHCP Client — You’re not connecting to a specific DHCP server on your local network

Distributed Link Tracking Client — You’re not connected to a Windows 2000 domain

DNS Client — You’re not connecting to a specific DNS server on your local network

FTP Publishing Service — You don’t need your system to act as an FTP server

IIS Admin Service — You don’t need your system to act as an WWW server

IPSEC Policy Agent — You’re not connected to a Windows 2000 domain

Messenger — You’re not connected to a Windows 2000 domain

Remote Registry Service — You don’t remotely access the Registry of other systems on your local network

RIP Service — You don’t need your system to act as a router

Run As Service — You don’t use any applications that run as an alias

World Wide Web Publishing Service
You don’t need your system to act as an WWW server
If you find a match and think that your system doesn’t need that particular service, right-click on the service and choose the Properties command from the shortcut menu. When you see the Properties dialog box for that service, click the Startup Type drop down list and select Manual. Then click OK. As you change the Startup Type for any service, take note of the service’s name. That way you’ll have a record of which services you changed and can change them back if you need to, as I’ll explain in a moment.

Using the Windows Task Manager
Trick : To determine the amount of RAM you’ll regain by disabling unnecessary system services, use the Windows Task Manager. Here’s how: Before you disable any system services, reboot your system and don’t launch any applications. If you have applications that automatically load when you start Windows, hold down the [Shift] key to bypass the Startup folder. Then, right click on the task bar and select Task Manager from the shortcut menu. When you see the Windows Task Manager dialog box, select the Performance tab. Now take note of the Available value in the Physical Memory panel. After you disable those system services you deem unnecessary, reboot your system in the same manner and compare the Available value in the Physical Memory panel to the one that you noted earlier.

Final thoughts
Keep in mind that you may not find all the services listed in the Table set to Automatic on your system. In fact, you might not even see some of the services listed present on your system. If that’s the case, don’t worry about it. Each Windows 2000/XP installation is unique depending on the system and installed software, and different sets of services may be installed and set to start automatically.

On the other hand, you may find services other than those listed in Table set to Automatic that you may think are unnecessary. If so, you can find out what each service does by hovering your mouse pointer over the service’s description. When you do, a tool tip window will pop up and display the entire description of the service. You can then better determine if the service is unnecessary. Remember, by changing the Startup Type to Manual, Windows 2000 can still start the service if it’s needed. If you decide to experiment with changing the Startup Types of certain services, you can monitor the services over time by launching the Services utility and checking the list of running services. If you consistently find one of the services you set to Manual running, you may decide to change the Startup Type back to Automatic.

Popularity: unranked [?]

Windows  has a whole array of helpful command line tools for configuring and testing Internet and LAN connections. The following is a list of useful network commands that can be used from the command prompt. A lot of these commands are intended for administrating a network, but they are great for savvy home users as well. All of the tools are run by opening a Command window and entering the appropriate command. Go to Start-Run and enter “cmd” to open a Command window.

net – Used to start, stop and view networking operations.
ipconfig – Displays the IP Address and other TCP/IP information on your system.
netstat – Returns protocol statistics and current TCP/IP connections.
hostname – Displays the Microsoft networking computer name.
lpq – Displays the print queue status of an LPD printer.
ping – Verify the connectivity or a host across a network.
nbtstat – Returns protocol statistics and current TCP/IP connections.
ipxroute – Displays and modifies IPX routing tables.
route – Manipulates TCP/IP routing information
tracert – Displays route taken by an ICMP to a remote host.
finger – Displays information about the user
arp – Displays or modifies information in the ARP (Address Resolution Protocol) cache
getmac – Lists the MAC (Media Access Control) Address on the computer network interfaces
Add  /? to the command will provide more information e.g. ipconfig show more information about ipconfig command.

Some Applications:

Display Connection Configuration: ipconfig /all
Display DNS Cache Info Configuration: ipconfig /displaydns
Clear DNS Cache: ipconfig /flushdns
Release All IP Address Connections: ipconfig /release
Renew All IP Address Connections: ipconfig /renew
Re-Register the DNS connections: ipconfig /registerdns
Change/Modify DHCP Class ID: ipconfig /setclassid
Network Connections: control netconnections
Network Setup Wizard: netsetup.cpl
Test Connectivity: ping www.webaholics.in
Trace IP address Route: tracert
Displays the TCP/IP protocol sessions: netstat
Display Local Route: route
Display Resolved MAC Addresses: arp
Display Name of Computer Currently on: hostname
Display DHCP Class Information:ipconfig /showclassid

Notes:

Some command-line tools require the user to have administrator-level privileges on source and/or target computers.
You must have the TCP/IP network protocol installed to use the TCP/IP utilities.

Popularity: 20% [?]

The abbreviation known as DNS stands for domain name servers. They are an important but invisible part of the Internet. But first let me tell you a little bit about domain names…

A domain name is what appears on the address bar of an Internet page such as www.example.com. It is the address of the website that you are visiting. Your domain name is highly important to the success of your website; for a start your domain name should reflect what your business is about. So if you are in the business of selling phones your domain name should ideally have the word phone in it. This is because if someone conducts a search for phones your website will have more of a chance of appearing if you have this keyword in the address of your website.

New domain names are usually registered through the registrar for annual terms with a minimum of one year. The maximum length of prepaid registration is often 10 years, but varies depending on the policies of the sponsoring registry of the top-level domain under which registration is sought. Registration periods may be extended, usually at any time, until the end of a grace period after the registration expiration date. Domain names should also be kept short and should be something that is easy to remember so that people will be more likely to type your websites address into their browser.

Your domain name doesn’t actually appear as words, well it does to us but the actual name of your website is a 32 bit number, for example 199.249.130.4. Every website on the Internet has a number like this, they are known as the sites IP address. As well as every site having an IP address, every computer that is connected to the Internet also has their own IP address.

The reason that these IP addresses are changed into words is simply down to the fact that words are easier to remember. It is difficult to remember IP addresses, especially with how many IP addresses there actually are. Think about all of the sites that you visit daily, if these sites were all named with numbers would you be able to remember them all? The vast majority of us certainly couldn’t!

So when you type a websites address into your browser why doesn’t it appear as numbers, how does the computer find the site you are looking for? This is where a domain name server comes in. A domain name server converts the IP address of websites into words. The flexibility of the domain name system allows multiple IP addresses to be assigned to a single domain name, or multiple domain names to be services from a single IP address.

This means that one server may have multiple roles (such as hosting multiple independent websites), or that one role can be spread among many servers. One IP address can also be assigned to several servers, as used in any cast networking.

Popularity: 38% [?]