MSFeedSync.exe is an executable file used by the Windows Internet Explorer 7 web browser to periodically update in-browser RSS feeds. It only appears in the Windows Task Manager if IE7 is running. In addition it only appears from time to time and isn’t in "always on" state.

If you use the IE7 feature to read feeds in-browser, you need this enabled in order for it to work. However if you use another feed reader (such as Google Reader, Bloglines, RSS Bandit, FeedDemon, Thunderbird, etc.) you can safely disable this.

To disable:

1. Go to Control Panel.

2. Double-click Internet Options.

3. Click Content tab.

4. Click the Settings button under Feeds. See image below for example.

5. Uncheck Automatically check feeds for updates. See below for example.

That’s it. Click OK a few times to exit.

If you run an older computer  there are certain services you can safely disable in Windows XP. This won’t make your computer blazingly faster by any means but it will gain you a "few extra horsepower", so to speak.

To access your running services:

1. Go to Control Panel.
2. Double-click the Administrative Tools icon.
3. Double-click the Services icon.

This will bring up a list of all the services in your Windows XP installation.

It should look similar to this:

To disable a service…

Double-click the one you want, click Stop then choose the Startup Type to be Disabled so it will not start again.

Remember: You can re-enable any service by doing the exact reverse.

Error Reporting Service

I have never found a solid reason to keep this service running. Any error report I’ve ever received has not served to assist me whatsoever. So I disable this.

Help and Support

Do you ever use the built-in Windows XP Help and Support section? I don’t.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Remote Assistance will not work if this service is disabled. But if you never use RA you can disable it safely.

Indexing Service

The description of this service is "Indexes contents and properties of files on local and remote computers; provides rapid access to files".

What I’ve found is that this does nothing but slow down XP. If you’ve ever found that your hard drive seems to "think about stuff" for no reason whatsoever even when your computer is doing (seemingly) nothing, this is why.

In a networking environment this would be bad to disable (as it would make access slower). But if you’re just using one computer it’s 100% okay to disable this.

Themes Service

This is the service that gives XP its themed look, called "Luna". If you disable this service your XP will look almost identical to Windows 2000.

Of all the services you can disable, this will speed up Windows XP the most. Without the graphic overhead, screen draws and redraws occur much faster.

Important note: Some applications (albeit few) assume that you have Luna enabled. Without it running these apps may not look correct. But this does not happen often.

I have already found that the “Smart” Location Bar, a new’n'improved feature in Firefox 3, really ticks me off. Why? Because there’s absolutely no way to shut it off via the options panel.

Note before continuing: Some people really like the “Smart” bar. I don’t.

Fortunately you can somewhat disable it via about:config.

Step 1. Type about:config in the location bar.

You’ll get this:

(click to enlarge)

Oh ha ha ha, very funny Mozilla. A warranty on a free product. Oh yes, I’ll be careful, not to worry!

Notices like this annoy the crap out of me. [click]

Step 2. Type urlbar next to filter.

Looks like this:

(click to enlarge)

Step 3. Change two of the values.

Change browser.urlbar.matchOnlyTyped to true and browser.urlbar.maxRichResults to 1 or 0. If you want the location bar to act like Firefox 2 did, set it to 1. Otherwise set to 0.

Looks like this:

(click to enlarge)

You’re done at this point.

Now when you start typing in something in the location bar it will skip popping up this crapola all over the place.

Final tip:

If you like the Smart Location Bar but would rather see it have less results, keep matchOnlyTyped to false and set maxRichResults to 5 instead of 12.