Windows 11 is a very complex operating system with a ton of features and things packed in you may not even be aware of. Even beyond the surface-level things you see when you first set up a PC, a lot of services exist in the background that you might not know are running.

These services exist to ensure that specific features work when they're needed, rather than requiring extra work from you when they become necessary. But in some cases, they may just not be useful to you at all, and having these services start in the background has no benefit to you, while having the potential to slow down your PC — though, admittedly, it's unlikely the impact is significant at all. Still, if you think you could squeeze more performance out of your computer or you just want enhanced privacy, here are 10 services I disabled on my PC, and you can also disable yourself.

How to turn off Windows services

Before we get onto the list itself, you may be wondering how turning these services is done. All you need to do is open the search bar in Windows 11 and look for Services, and you should see it as the first result. In this window, you'll see all the services we're about to go over (and many others). Double-click the ones you want to disable and use the dropdown menu labeled Startup type to set it to Disabled.

10 Windows Mobile Hotspot Service

Are you really using your laptop as a hotspot?

One of the many features you may not know your Windows 11 PC has is the ability to act as a Wi-Fi hotspot for other devices, but really, why would you want that? The whole point of a Wi-Fi hotspot is to share a mobile data connection, and most laptops don't have that in the first place.

Truth be told, this service doesn't even run in the background most of the time, it's set to start based on a trigger, so it shouldn't use any resources unless you actually need it. But since you likely don't, there's no harm in disabling it, either. The service does start automatically when you open the Mobile hotspot page in the Settings app, so this is a good way to prevent it if you open it by accident or something.

9 Fax

What's that?

Faxing documents used to be a pretty important thing to be able to do — though in my 29 years of life, I've only ever seen a functional fax machine once — so, of course, Windows has had the option to handle fax for a long time. Nowadays, I suspect almost no one is still using this system for sending any kind of document, and almost certainly not if you're just using your personal computer.

Much like the Windows Mobile Hotspot Service, this is one that's only set to start based on a specific trigger, so it won't be running in the background anyway. But if you just don't want it to have the chance to start up at all, you can disable it entirely.

8 Downloaded Maps Manager

Probably not using your PC as a GPS, either

Downloaded Maps Manager is a fairly self-explanatory service that allows you to manage the maps you've downloaded onto your PC using the Windows Maps app. You probably didn't even know you could do that, and I wouldn't blame you, because who's actually relying on a Windows PC to give them directions somewhere while traveling? It's not like Windows Maps even has any official way to use that data on your phone, either.

At this point, Microsoft has even announced the deprecation of Windows Maps as a whole, so this service is only going to get more useless in the near future. Feel free to disable this one as well, it won't do anything for you.

7 Certificate Propagation

Depending on who you are

Judging by the name alone, this service sounds pretty important, and to be fair, it can be. Certificate Propagation is used for smart cards, and it installs the certificates from an inserted smart card onto your system so that they actually function as authentication.

Smart cards are most often used in specific business scenarios, so there's a good chance you don't need this. Speaking from personal experience, though, Portuguese ID cards are also smart cards, and it's not that far-fetched to buy an external smart card reader for your PC to use with certain government services. It's certainly not something everyone is doing, but it's worth considering before you disable it.

If you don't have anything like this, though, go ahead and disable this one as well.

6 Windows Insider Service

It's not for most people

The Windows Insider Service is — unsurprisingly — responsible for handling your enrollment in the WIndows Insider program, which gets you access to development builds of Windows that contain new features and changes before everyone else gets to try them. While early access can be cool, not everyone wants to deal with the instability that also comes with having a pre-release piece of software, and most people aren't going to sign up for the program.

Before disabling this one, check again to make sure you're not currently using an Insider build, as this may break your ability to leave the program or get new updates. But if you're not in the Insider program and you never plan to be, this is another one you can turn off without any worries.

5 Parental Controls

If you don't have kids

If your computer is used by children, the Parental Controls service is a fairly important one that allows you to enforce parental control restrictions on the device, such as screen time limits. For families with shared computers and child accounts, this is a fairly important thing to have, but if you have a laptop that's all yours, you're probably not setting up a child account, and thus, you don't need this one.

This is another service that doesn't really run unless it's needed, so disabling it isn't going to make a huge difference either way. But if you enjoy turning things off, this is a safe pick.

4 Windows Image Acquisition

Unless you're scanning documents

Microsoft describes the Windows Image Acquisition service as handling the acquisition of images from both scanners and cameras. However, it seems that webcams are not affected by this setting, so you can still partake in meetings or record videos using software like OBS.

What you can't do is use a scanner, so if you intend to scan physical documents to send them to someone, this may be a problem. Thankfully, most people don't have a scanner at home, and with mobile scanning apps becoming so prevalent nowadays, there isn't much of a reason for most people to have one, so this is another safe one to disable altogether.

3 TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper

Say goodbye to local network devices, though

The TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper service is used for communication with devices on the local network. If you're accessing files through a local connection to other PCs on your network, this is a very important feature, so you shouldn't disable it if you use things like SMB shares, and definitely not in a large enterprise environment.

However, most people at home aren't going to need this kind of connection. There are plenty of ways to share files with nearby devices that aren't affected by this service, and chances are high that you're using one of those methods instead of traditional network shares. There's a very high chance you don't need this one, so go ahead and disable it.

2 Xbox Live Game Save

Just stick to Steam

Microsoft owns both Windows and Xbox, so of course the company wants to try and offer some connections between the two platforms. Xbox is included with Windows and you can buy and play many games through there, but unless you also own an Xbox, there aren't a ton of reasons why you would. Most PC gaming happens on Steam, and some of it is also on the Epic Games Store thanks to the frequent free games on offer.

All that is to say you're probably not buying a lot of games on the Xbox store, and if you're not, this service isn't that useful to you. It handles downloading and syncing save data with Xbox Live, which I imagine a lot of people don't care about, so you can go ahead and turn this one off, too.

On that note, if you don't have an Xbox controller or other Xbox-branded accessories, you can also disable the Xbox Accessory Management service.

1 Connected User Experiences and Telemetry

No one wants this one, right?

Finally, we have one that we just couldn't skip. Connected USer Experiences and Telemetry is responsible for sending diagnostic data from your device to Microsoft in order to enhance the Windows experience. While it's true that sending this data to Microsoft can help fix certain issues, there's a good chance you don't need this running all the time.

A lot of users consider Microsoft's telemetry to be invasive anyway, since it's collecting data about what you're doing, so disabling this service is definitely a boon for them. This one will likely be running when you go and edit it, so in addition to disabling it, make sure to also click Stop so it stops running immediately.

Are you disabling unnecessary Windows services?

If we're being real, disabling most of these services won't bring you much of a benefit, but to be fair, neither does leaving them enabled. There's probably not much of a reason to go diving into the list of Windows services to disable them, but if you do want to, these picks are all fairly safe, with a few exceptions that depend on how you use your PC. I disabled all of these on my PC and have had no issues so far, so you should be in the clear. Plus, you can always turn them back on if you face any problems.