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ThatStupidCat
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Windows 8.1 and Task Scheduler

Fri Jul 18, 2014 12:29 am

The surest way get to the Task Scheduler is by going to Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Task Scheduler.

There are items here that I like to disable and but I was wondering what any of you think should be disabled.

I'll start with my favorite.
On an SSD I like to go and disable the scheduled Defrag or outright delete the entry. I read somewhere that Windows will not run the defragger on an SSD but I disable and take it off anyway and be safe.

Also anything in the Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP) gets disabled but so far I've not deleted them.
The entry in the Autochk folder is also related to the CEIP and is disabled.
DiskDiagnostic folder has an entry about data collection for the CEIP and is also disabled.
In Application Experience I disable the first 2 items but leave StartupAppTask running. I'm not really sure what this does.

For a desktop I disable the item in Mobile Broadband Accounts.

I've always wanted to do more research into the LocationNotification.exe but haven't taken the time.

There's a few more I like to disable but I'd like to hear what you like to do. There's a few entries in Services (Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Services) that I also like to disable but this will be for another thread.

On that note, there are entries in the Shell directory of Task Scheduler related to FamilySafety that gets disabled. Then this disabled in "Services". The note for Family Safety says "It is provided for backward compatibility only". I've never used this so I have no need for it but others might.

That's it for me for now. Will add more next week.
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DancinJack
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Re: Windows 8.1 and Task Scheduler

Fri Jul 18, 2014 3:08 am

So, you're disabling things that either you don't really know what they do or things that don't affect any way you use the computer?

Why not just leave this stuff how it is?
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LostCat
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Re: Windows 8.1 and Task Scheduler

Fri Jul 18, 2014 3:11 am

Windows 8s defragger will TRIM an SSD instead of defragging, so disabling it is harmful to performance. Nice going there.
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arunphilip
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Re: Windows 8.1 and Task Scheduler

Fri Jul 18, 2014 4:13 am

Savyg wrote:
Windows 8s defragger will TRIM an SSD instead of defragging, so disabling it is harmful to performance. Nice going there.


^- This.
 
Wirko
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Re: Windows 8.1 and Task Scheduler

Fri Jul 18, 2014 4:27 am

TRIM commands are supposed to be sent to SSD upon each file deletion, so why should defragmenter care about that?

To OP - if you're experimenting, document every change to the system. You may realize that you've broken something months or years later.
 
arunphilip
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Re: Windows 8.1 and Task Scheduler

Fri Jul 18, 2014 5:30 am

Wirko wrote:
TRIM commands are supposed to be sent to SSD upon each file deletion, so why should defragmenter care about that?


Those TRIMs might have been ignored due to drive activity at the time of deletion. See this TechNet thread for an explanation:

In Windows 8, when the Storage Optimizer (the new defrag tool) detects that the volume is mounted on an SSD - it sends a complete set of trim hints for the entire volume again - this is done at idle time and helps to allow for SSDs that were unable to cleanup earlier - a chance to react to these hints and cleanup and optimizer for the best performance.
 
ThatStupidCat
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Re: Windows 8.1 and Task Scheduler

Fri Jul 18, 2014 7:00 am

Wirko wrote:
TRIM commands are supposed to be sent to SSD upon each file deletion, so why should defragmenter care about that?

To OP - if you're experimenting, document every change to the system. You may realize that you've broken something months or years later.


This is exactly why I started this thread. I don't know what I'm doing but the input from the forum has been excellent. Others who know more about this stuff can tell me if what I'm doing is wrong or maybe I can go about it another way.

I don't know what's a TRIM command but I'll be reading on it.
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ThatStupidCat
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Re: Windows 8.1 and Task Scheduler

Fri Jul 18, 2014 7:16 am

So learned this "Windows 8 does not allow the defragmenting of an SSD and simply triggers TRIM instead" and that TRIM causes the OS to initiate "garbage collection which wipes clean the space that files were recently deleted". It also goes on to discuss why this is important for an SSD. I did not know. Good stuff.

I was under the impression that defrag would do the old defrag like on hard drives which is bad for SSDs. This is one thing that is going to be put back on enable for sure. Thank you!!!
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Aranarth
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Re: Windows 8.1 and Task Scheduler

Fri Jul 18, 2014 7:28 am

The other thing I should point out is that services in windows 8 are supposed to only run if needed and can even be started when needed and then stopped when not. So far this seems to only work properly with services created by microsoft or ones that are specifically designed for windows 8.
This is a change from previous versions of wind0ws such as vista or earlier where if a service was started it was not automatically stopped when it was no longer needed. (You could stop it manually if you wanted to.)

This is one of the many things that win8 has under the hood that are better than previous versions of windows and why it uses a less resources than win7, vista, and maybe winxp.

In general I would leave things alone but a good place to start learning about services and other things your machine is running at startup is www.blackviper.com

Since you mention having an ssd you have already opened one of the biggest remaining bottlenecks on a modern machine. You really wont see much improvement from here except maybe in synthetic benchmarks or doing something that pegs the processor at 100% for hours on end.
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deepblueq
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Re: Windows 8.1 and Task Scheduler

Sun Jul 20, 2014 1:43 pm

DancinJack wrote:
So, you're disabling things that either you don't really know what they do or things that don't affect any way you use the computer?

Why not just leave this stuff how it is?


Because they're "... things that don't affect any way you use the computer" but they're not free in terms of resources (though many may be very very close to free). You could just buy a faster computer, but often it makes more sense to optimize the software side until it runs fast instead.

I represent a fairly extreme case of this. I didn't care about gaming for a while, and absent that, I did nothing with a computer that intrinsically took a lot of compute power. In that time, I used a variety of computers that the average user would consider hopelessly underpowered, most notably a single-core Atom netbook and (as recently as a year ago) a northwood Pentium 4. I never had problems with the performance of any of these, thanks to:

* an SSD
* Linux
* lightweight desktop environments (LXDE or Xfce, more recently straight Openbox)
* attention to detail (the relevant one)

Attention to detail means stuff a lot like the subject of this thread - making sure the computer isn't doing stuff in the background that it doesn't actually need to be doing (if you can help it). Like I was saying, I'm an extreme case, but this sort of work can occasionally be the difference between a system that's snappy enough it doesn't really matter, and one that's merely usable.

So is it worth the OP's time from a strict effort/performance perspective? Unlikely. Is it worthwhile to know how to do? I think so.

(Also, it may not be strictly a performance thing. Even absent resource use, CEIP sounds like something I'd rather not have running.)
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LostCat
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Re: Windows 8.1 and Task Scheduler

Sun Jul 20, 2014 1:46 pm

You can disable CEIP without messing with the task scheduler.
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ThatStupidCat
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Re: Windows 8.1 and Task Scheduler

Sun Jul 20, 2014 3:54 pm

Task Scheduler - I find that not too many people look into this. I guess it's just that obvious except for me. What got me started down this rabbit hole was finding an entry but Citrix's GoToMeeting to check and see if the program is up to date every 60 min starting at 7:30 in the morning for as long as the program is installed. So I wonder what else could lurk in Task Scheduler? On Monday will build an excel spreadsheet of the default entries and settings. Someone writing a program to track changes to Task Scheduler would be something new. Think of registry tracker.

Windows has a habit of things turning on despite being told they should be off. Example is Microsoft Sync Center of mobsync.exe (still need to learn more about this)

Haven't had time to deal with Task Scheduler during the weekend but will try to get through it this coming week.
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