The idea is simple: why don’t we turn off all the modules of Apache HTTPD server and PHP which we do not use at all? Hopefully, we should get the light version of the application platform. Surely, there may be various ways to optimize Apache and PHP, monitor it, and then fine tune it again for your needs. This is an on-going process.
For this exercise, I used XAMPP 1.7.3 which comes with:
Apache Httpd 2.2.14 and PHP 5.3.1
After installing XAMPP with the default settings, I have turned off PERL (mod_perl) support as well as IPv6 and SSL (mod_ssl) by following the command line prompts during the installation.
After this step, the main victim modules are … (come on, they have just been turned off!)
# mod_actions # mod_alias # mod_asis # mod_auth_basic # mod_auth_digest # mod_authn_default # mod_authn_file # mod_authz_default # mod_authn_file # mod_authz_default # mod_authz_groupfile # mod_authz_user # mod_cgi # mod_dav # mod_dav_fs # mod_dav_lock # mod_include # mod_info # mod_rewrite # mod_autoindex_color
Then, I commented out the lines related to alias_module (including ScriptAlias), cgi-bin configurations, and XAMPP file (httpd-xampp.conf).
I had to enable mod_authz_host to give IP specific access permissions to my clients.
On the contrary, I wanted to enable modules which could be useful for performance such as:
+ mod_deflate
I would like to check the contribution of the caching modules for static content like images, CSS files and JavaScript files which tend to change rarely in our applications:
~ mod_cache
~ mod_mem_cache
Some recommend to setup a separate web media server by using lightweight web server applications such as lighttpd and thttpd, which forces us to look at alternatives and compare.
On the PHP side (php.ini), I did not need the following libraries (modules):
; php_exif ; php_imap ; php_soap ; php_sockets ; php_xmlrpc ; php_zip ; php_ming ; php_pdflib
On the other hand, we need to check the following modules if they work and do not crash our web application:
~ php_apc or
~ php_eaccelerator
Happy coding!
Also known as content indexing service, this process is part of Windows operating system, and it is supposed to index the files on the drive(s), which should provide faster file search and access using the indexing service catalog.
Instead of speeding up your machine, it sometimes slows it down, which is probably because some dummy Microsoft programmers coded it and in some cases it is confused!
It should simply run when the machine is idle; and when is that on a server ?!
Maybe, it is programmed to work based on mouse and keyboard events, and when there is none, it thinks it is idle?!
Servers are always busy. That is the reason they exist. For example, since 2000, many companies have websites with database applications, open to customers and visitors from all parts of the world. I could otherwise say, during the day it is busy selling products, during the night it is busy backing up itself!
Nowadays, people use laptops to connect to their PCs or servers at work from the sofa at home! Loads of virtual/terminal sessions on a server kills it! You would not use a Windows Server to host 100 concurrent Remote Desktop sessions, would you?
Anyway, I am wondering when Microsoft will stop assuming their users are stupid, and let them choose which services/applications to enable.
For example, I am using an old PC with a bare Windows XP Pro (without antivirus), which uses around 80MB of memory when “nothing” is running on it, ready to use.
Also, I am using another x64 PC with Vista Home Ed (with antivirus) and it consumes around 900MB already when it is just started.
I recommend to use Linux or BSD variants for servers.
Future is open (..source)!
Fancy vista makeup comes with some loss of simple old features:
Select All (Ctrl + A) items in a folder simply does NOT work anymore!? But why?!
I cannot understand why Microsoft is capable of producing very popular software applications, and is still incapable of keeping usefull features ..or breaking the working parts!?
Apparently, this is a BUG introduced on new edition of Windows you can find the fix in one of M$ community sites:
http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/en-us/default.aspx?..
I always hated fancy and TOTALLY unnecessary effects and makeup M$ has introduced to deceive PC dummies 
Why can I not have my simple Windows Explorer?!
