Computers are excellent for playing games. But sometimes you can experience game lags, and this could increase your chances of dying just when you are about to conquer the world. You could spend hours, days, weeks finding the lightest software, limiting applications from actively running from the tray, disabling the right services, and reading lengthy guides on windows optimization. All just to get the best game playing computer imaginable! Gamers know that game play is only as efficient as their slowest part. If you have a fast Internet connection, a fast modern computer, extra memory, special graphics cards … but still have a bunch of programs or services auto starting and running in the background, then possibly you will get game lags, poor performance, slow clicking and mouse response, and so on.

Windows also likes to start many unnecessary programs and services on the off chance you might need to send a fax. For some, this just offends our sense of minimalism. Some people don’t like to mess around with windows services, however, for fear of future problems or because they have many computing needs in their non-gamer life. Or maybe they just get squeamish thinking about control panel settings.

Vista Services Optimizer enables you to safely optimize Windows services based on how you use your computer. A standard Vista installation has many services turned on and running that you may not have any use for, consuming CPU and memory that can potentially slow down your system. Vista Services Optimizer analyzes your system and suggest services that can be safely turned off. You can choose to perform an automatic tune-up based on what is suitable for your system, or use a manual tune-up that lets you select from a more detailed list of features that you want to disable. The program does not require any technical knowledge and provides easy to understand checkbox options to tune your system for your personal needs. It also includes a system restore feature that allows you to restore Windows service settings to their defaults at any time.

For some users who don’t normally optimize their systems, it might have a greater impact. Grab the System Explorer and see what it does. If you are not happy, you could always uninstall it or just use it for optimizing services.

The Gaming Mode screen also nicely provides you with 8 other links to windows features and additional tweaks to help with performance, but these are not temporary changes for the most part and may decrease your windows experience.

It’s an extremely simple app for gamers. Boost your performance and play. I found its effects rather marginal, but I still like using it and I’m keeping it. I like saying “No” to windows services while I play games or listen to music. It’s my computer after all.