Your Windows PC does more than just run your apps. It also tracks usage, shares updates, and quietly reports data back to Microsoft. All of this is made possible by a bunch of background services that are constantly running.

But the more I looked into it, the more I realized a lot of these so-called helpful services were doing things that weren’t really necessary, or in some cases, only benefiting Microsoft. So I decided to turn them off, and honestly, I’m glad I did because my PC felt lighter and far less cluttered than before.

Delivery Optimization

Saving Microsoft’s servers at your expense

Delivery Optimization is a service that lets your PC share update files with other systems, both on your local network and across the internet. In return, your system can also download update files from those sources instead of relying solely on Microsoft’s servers. This service seems harmless until you look a little closer.

For one, since your PC is uploading updates, your internet connection can take a hit at the worst possible moments. This means you might notice slower speeds while streaming, gaming, or just browsing. Also, to make this work, Windows stores update files even after they’ve been installed, and they can easily take up several gigabytes of storage.

That’s why Delivery Optimization is one of the first things I disable on any Windows PC.

Windows Search

All that RAM usage for mediocre results

Windows Search is one of those features that feels essential. It’s designed to make finding files, apps, and settings instant, which is why it constantly indexes your system.

But that processing doesn’t come free. On systems with multiple drives and thousands of small files, this service can chew through CPU, RAM, and disk usage. What makes this frustrating is that even with all that background activity, Windows Search isn’t always the fastest or most reliable way to find things.

An easy way to cut all that background usage is to use a lightweight tool like Everything. It’s much faster because of its lightweight indexing method and supports all the necessary filters and operators you might need.

OS

Windows

Price model

Free

Everything is a Windows filename search engine that guarantees fast and accurate file search even without typing entire file names. 

SysMain

A speed boost that backfires in most cases

SysMain is one of those background services that’s supposed to make your PC faster. It observes how you use your PC and tries to predict which apps you’re likely to open. It then preloads those apps into memory so they can launch quickly. To be fair, on older PCs with traditional hard drives, this actually makes a difference.

But on modern PCs running SSDs, where apps already open fast enough, the benefits are far less obvious. On top of that, SysMain itself can be surprisingly aggressive with disk activity and RAM usage, which can affect the overall performance.

In a way, a service meant to speed up things ends up slowing everything down. So yes, unless your PC has old hardware, you don’t really need SysMain.

Connected User Experiences and Telemetry

Data collection in plain sight

The Connected User Experience and Telemetry service is responsible for collecting diagnostic and usage data from your PC and sending it back to Microsoft. The idea is to help improve Windows by understanding how people use it and how it runs. This service gathers all sorts of information from system performance and app usage to how you interact with your PC.

Windows Error Reporting works in a similar way. Wherever something crashes or behaves unexpectedly, it collects error data and reports back to Microsoft.

All this data collection means more background activity, which doesn’t really benefit you. Also, not everyone likes the idea of Microsoft collecting all this information. The good thing is, disabling this service won’t break anything, and your PC will operate without constant reporting.

Program Compatibility Assistant Service

Fixing problems you don’t have

Program Compatibility Assistant is designed to monitor apps as they run and step in if something seems incompatible with your version of Windows. When it detects any issues, it suggests fixes or applies settings to help the program run properly.

But the thing is, unless you’re running some decade-old program that’s no longer supported today, you don’t need this service running all the time. It simply adds to the growing list of background processes that use system resources. If you still want to keep it around, it’s better to set the service to Manual so it only runs when you need it.

Honestly, when I was tweaking these services, I expected at least something to go wrong. Maybe a feature would break or Windows would start behaving unpredictably, but nothing happened. Still, you shouldn’t go around disabling just about any service. There are some services you should never touch even if you know what you’re doing.