Questions regarding audio account set up in Windows 7

[Rip van Winkle]

Hi guys, I took a couple of years off of deejaying when my son was born but it is itching it's way back into my life
So i am now trying to set up my new HP pavilion i7 machine for traktor pro 2 and ableton to run with my mpd24 and hercules RMX.

The thing is....
I used to run all this first on a windows xp (which worked great) and later on a vista machine but i got so tired of messing with vista (drop outs and spikes) that i stopped completely. So now i have this new machine and i want to set it up good and propper so i don't look like a tool performing with driop outs and such, so i figured i need to make a seperate account for my audio.
I already got the tutorial from the NI site to make my laptop audio friendly but
Things i'd like to know now are:

is it possible to make a seperate (sub) account that has no windows updates, internet or unneccesary programs running, and a lot of the laps hardware turned of while still maintaining full functionality in my normal account? i have a network set up at home for streaming and such and i don't want to be manually activating or deactivating stuff constantly.
I know i would be better of with a seperate laptop but finances atm make this impossible
I just figured that maybe if i made seperate accounts i could just have my audio account start up with traktor running and no hassle?

thanks in advance for your time and thoughts on this
If there is already a thread covering this please just direct me to it and close this one
thank you

[DJQA]

That's not quite possible, since Windows update, networking etc are system services instead of account specific settings. The traditional method is to have a dual boot install, with a barebones OS for audio work and a regular one for everything else. I'm not sure how it's done in 7, and to be honest I've been perfectly happy with its audio performance without any specific tweaks.

[Rip van Winkle]

do you mean i should just try it as it is? won't the hardware and updates cause spikes and drop outs?

[DJQA]

Absolutely, try the easiest way first! Windows 7 is much improved over Vista when it comes to audio performance. A lot of the performance is up to the audio interface drivers - in my case, M-Audio was a total no-go with anything but XP, but my Focusrite Saffire and Numark 4Trak both work wonderfully under Win7 x64 without any additional tweaks. I run them on ASIO with ~7.5ms total output latency, and I've got a relatively ancient Core 2 Quad.

Also, note that a lot of the "audio optimization" guides floating around the net are based on 2000/XP-era information. Things such as switching processor scheduling to background tasks usually make things worse for audio on Win7, not better!

[Rip van Winkle]

ok i will try that, thank you for the swift reply!