Just having gone through a test installation of Photoshop CS6 on a Windows 8 x64 virtual machine, I found it interesting that just after Photoshop CS6 went in Windows itself reported, through the Action Center, that a bunch of ''background'' programs were installed, and would I like to go into msconfig32 and disable them. In short, even Windows thinks the stuff Adobe installs is excessive and potentially troublesome! As I prefer AutoRuns to msconfig32, I acutally did go and disable the software which I do not need running, to keep the system lean... It turns out that I actually AM able to disable just about every ''background'' program that Adobe installed, and Photoshop still works just fine. Just to be clear, the only Adobe software packages I've installed on this VM are Adobe Reader and Adobe Photoshop CS6. Here's a list of various modules I have disabled without apparent downside: Programs started at login by entries in the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run: Adobe ARM (Adobe Reader and Acrobat Manager) AdobeCS6ServiceManager (Adobe CS6 Service Manager) SwitchBoard (SwitchBoard Server (32 bit) Services started at bootup by entries in the registy key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services: AdobeARMservice (Adobe Acrobat Updater keeps your Adobe software up to date) SwitchBoard (Adobe SwitchBoard) Task Scheduler Entries \AdobeAAMUpdater-1.0-W8VMRP-NoelC (Adobe Updater Startup Utility) In the context of a Photoshop-only installation, about the only downside I can see for disabling these things is that since the auto-updaters have been disabled, occasionally I'll need to check for updates manually (e.g., Help - Updates... in the menus, when I hear on the forums that an update has been released). Many of these things run all the time, from bootup, whether we're using Adobe software or not. It's no wonder people report that their systems "slow down" over time. Adobe: Please consider offering a ''Lean'' or ''Custom'' installation mode in which these things are optional, and provide clear descriptions of what functionality they provide. Not everyone prefers to give up their system resources for a little extra convenience. (and no, I'm not interested in posting this ''feature request'' over on Photoshop.com and hoping for votes) -Noel
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