Web User - UK (2019-10-16)

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NEXT ISSUE How To...Buildaninexpensivesmarthome

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Wednesday

30 Oct

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There are programsyou can

download that disable unnecessary

system services, freeing upresources

for other tasks, such as running games.

Or you can use a batch file. Right-click

the taskbar, openTask Manager and

click ‘More details’at the bottom. Click

the Services tab^1 and sort the listby

Status.^2

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You may be ableto identify some of

the running services that are safeto

disable, but don’tstop anything unless

you know it’s completely safeto do so.

You can find a list of safe-to-disable

Windows servicesatbit.ly/services486.

Make a note of the Name^1 or

Description^2 of a service thatyou want

to kill.

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In your batch file, use thenet

command,^1 followed bystop^2

and the service name or description

(put the latter in quotes).^3 Repeat the

processfor each of the services, then

save your file.You’ll needto run this

one inAdmin mode. Create another

batch fileto restart each serviceby

replacingstopwithstart.

MINIWORKSHOP|Speedupyour PCby disablingrunning services

speeds upyour PCby disabling
unnecessary services running in the
background.

Kill applications
Disabling unnecessary services is oneway
to free upresources but another option is
to kill running applicationsyou don’t
need.Thetaskkillcommand does this,
and there are acouple of parametersto
use with it.The/IMparameter matches
the item name from the Processescolumn
in Task Manager. Right-click the entry and
select Propertiesto get the full name. In
the case of theWindows Calculator, this
is ‘calculator.exe’. To kill that application,
typetaskkill /IM Calculator

.exe. This action basicallyreplicates

clicking thered corner X in a program,

and you’re given the chanceto save your

work before it closes. Ifyou justwant to

instantly end some applications, use the

/Fparameterto ‘for ce’ it to close. So,

taskkill /F /IM calculator.exe

terminates it immediately.

In ourexample,we’ve only used the

/F switch in applications where aforce

killingwon’t cause problems.

Load yourfavouritewebsites in

one go

If you routinely check a selection of

websites first thing in the morning

(or at any time of day, for that matter),

you can use a batch fileto load them in

separate tabs inyour default browser.

Sure, you could bookmark all the sites in

a specificfolder and load themby

right-clicking thatfolder and selecting

‘Open all’, but using a batch file is a little

bit quicker.For this taskyou needto use

thestart “”command. Create your

batch file, then add the sites oneat a

time.Your file’scontents should look

something like this:

@echo off

start “” https://www.bbc.co

.uk/news

start “” https://news.google

.com/

start “” https://www.facebook

.com

start “” https://www.youtube

.com

start “” https://www.gmail

.com

This batch file can quickly end a numberof running programsat the same time

Use a batch fileto load allyour favourite

websites in the defaultweb browser

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