Tips to keep Win7 host fast when VBox useage is infrequent

[MSHANNON]

Hi All

I've got a Win 7 x64 laptop that I want to load VirtualBox on to - which is reasonably tight on resources (memory/CPU) - and which I want to keep as fast as possible.
I've got a VirtualBox guest image that I will only need to load/run sparingly - say once a month for a few hours. Over those few hours, I'm happy to put up with bad performance.
Thus, 99% of the time, I don't actually need VirtualBox at all.

When VirtualBox installs, obviously it loads services, virtual network adapters etc.
I want to keep the host machine running as efficiently as possible when VirtualBox is not needed.
Do many folks try and disable these services etc when VirtualBox is not required?

If VirtualBox guest is not running, what type of CPU / memory utilization is there for VirtualBox background processes/services that may be loaded?

Any suggestions ? Or is this just over the top?

[BillG]

VirtualBox is just an application program. If you do not need it you don't start it. When it is not running it does not use any resources.

[mpack]

VirtualBox does not install useless permanently resident processes like many modern software suites do (e.g. update checkers et al (*)). The only exception is things like the tiny host only network driver, which take no noticeable resources when not in use.

(*) My personal prize for totally pointless goes to a Logitech mouse driver package I once installed, which as a fringe benefit (and without asking permission) installed a resident update checker that that used to go online every 15 seconds to check for updates - as if I couldn't tolerate having my (already working) mouse driver more then 15 seconds out of date. And, the cherry on the cake is that it popped up a modal dialog if it had network comms problems, which it had regularly. Needless to say I've never considered buying Logitech software since.