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It seems that the _xxxxx services are duplicates (attachment) and not needed in my one-user case. So how can I avoid these extra services to be created and started?
It’s a good question which others may also be interested in so I’ll tell you… It’s eminently do-able (so far) but not straightforward.
The only way I know to stop the duplicated services is to disable the parent service… but, obviously, you need to be aware of any side-effects.
I’ll give you an example and reasoning. I use Virtual Machines (VMs) for test purposes. The VMs (i.e. guest OS) run within a host device that has 32GB RAM. To make the VMs run as efficiently as possible – especially when I’m running 2 or more concurrently – I disable all unnecessary services, particularly those set to start automatically.
(I also just delete the nonsense services like Retail Demo Service. [Seriously, Microsoft? You included this in EVERY single Win 10 release for the last ~5 years? Are you nuts?])
I don’t use mail, contacts, calendar or any other built-in MS app on either host or VMs… so, for example, I don’t need the Sync Host service at all, even though it’s set to run automatically (with delayed start). This service is designated ‘per user’ so has an underscore and a random 5 or 6 character string appended to its service name.
I can stop the service… but if I try to disable it within the ‘Services’ GUI then I see an error – ‘The parameter is incorrect’.
This is Microsoft telling me it knows best, irrespective of my own wishes. So, what do I do?
I open the Registry Editor (using the Run as administrator option) and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\OneSyncSvc.
(OneSyncSvc is the *real* name of the service… Sync Host is just the *display name*.)
There I can see both the parent and ‘per user’ service entries.
In the parent service entry I change the Dword value for Start from 2 (i.e. automatically, with delay) to 4 (i.e. disabled) then I close the Registry Editor and restart the device (so the registry is re-read in its entirety).
Result: The new ‘per user’ Sync Host service is now disabled… because its parent service is disabled… and the child ‘per user’ service cannot be spawned differently to its parent.
Hope this helps…
I did a further check… on a VM running since 2017… and the Retail Demo Service is still there:
(I also just delete the nonsense services like Retail Demo Service. [Seriously, Microsoft? You included this in EVERY single Win 10 release for the last ~5 years? Are you nuts?])
It gets automatically removed after half an hour or one week:
Remove retail demo components
For devices with more than 32GB of storage, the components are automatically removed 7 days after the customer completes OOBE.
For devices with 32GB of storage or less, by default, the components are automatically removed 30 minutes after the customer completes OOBE.
Sorry but I’m going to have to query the veracity of that statement.
Here’s a screenshot of a Win 10 1909 instance provisioned May 2020 with 50GB storage, as reported by the PS query:
gcim Win32_OperatingSystem | select Version, InstallDate, OSArchitecture
And, below, is the Services console showing that the Retail Demo Service is still there 4 months on… so, not removed at all.
It’s a trivial service… (but one that I normally delete… and its artefacts).
I have it disabled but have no idea how to ‘delete’ it entirely.
Please provide sources.
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