Hi,
I recently reformatted my computer that I was using for music and regular use and right now it is bare bones.
 
Is there a way that I can set it up so that it can have two setups, one bare bones for music and one for regular use, with office programs and security programs running for example?  If so, is this worth it?  Do others do this?
 
I haven't been recording for a while, but I used to go in and all the processes in Task Manager (and there were a lot of them)  when I would use my computer for music.
 
 
My computer is a Dell XPS 8300 with 8G Ram, 64 bit, 3.1 GHz and a single TB drive.
 
Thanks in advance,
 
-Pete
 

sure you can,if you have any wireless devices like a wireless connection or bluetooth be sure to temporarly disable them in device manager.
what software will you be using?
something like sonar home studio and a working everyday daw works good.
even sonar x1 would as well there are just more resources and synths plug ins to play with therefor sometimes leading us to use more things putting more stress on our systems.

i used an i3 intel toshiba laptop as both mt daw and everyday surfer for a while before i swallowed a bullet and built 2 of them,both for digital audio recording.
when i did it i just made the small modifications like turning off bluetooth devices.wireless internet,turn off your anti virus is another one,you dont want anti virus doing a scan when your trying to record or mix down your next hit record.
you see?

Is there a way that I can set it up so that it can have two setups, one bare bones for music and one for regular use,

The application software for an office machine and a DAW should not get in each others way if they are both installed under the same OS installation. As chukebaby notes, some drivers (hardware) are probably better disabled in a DAW. Up until windows Vista it was fairly easy to set up  "hardware profiles" that you could choose at boot time to load the particular drivers you needed for the job. That feature is no longer easily available to the user, and you probably do not want to do a registry hack that would require you to boot, change the registry and then re-boot with the new "profile" every time you want to switch a set of services on or off. You could do a dual boot installation of the same OS and install the office apps under one and the sound apps on the other, but be aware that Microsoft interprets their licensing as requiring that you purchase two licenses to do this even though you are installing  the OS on the same hard drive twice and it is impossible to use both installations at the same time. Is it worth it to do that? Maybe. It might be easier just to disable the device(s) if they are causing problems with audio.

Thank you guys both very much for your replies.  Exactly the information and advice I was looking for.

Going forward, I am just going to be very mindful of anything that installl so that the system does not get too 'bloated' and disable devices and processes as needed when doing audio.

Thanks again!

Cheers!

-Pete