sc config Alerter start= disabled
sc.exe is included on XP and can also be used in 2000.
However there is no need for it, services are only used if needed, there is no need in a standard system to change anything from the defaults.
If you wish to not have a standard system, then go ahead, but noone is capable of knowing your current or future hardware and software system requirements. Without that information a database would not be capable of making assessments of services and their individual dependencies for you. It could not cater for every possible scenario, therefore would rely upon the knowledge of the user. If you have sufficient knowledge to know what you specifically want and need, then you should be capable of putting together a small script.
Similar could of course be said for the registry database! Tweaks are useful only to the specific machine, setup and user; the ramifications of any changes should be fully understood prior to their deployment.
Other than the deployment of IE settings, my personal registry tweak list can contain up to twelve entries.
Back to the point in hand, the most commonly accessed script in my toolkit is actually the one which resets windows services back to their defaults! Most PCs I am called out to have problems which are fixed using this script. Being armed with insufficient knowledge is more dangerous than being unarmed in this case.
We all trust Microsoft enough to spend a majority of our lives on their operating system, trusting it, a little too much possibly, with banking, shopping, and communication with the rest of the world. They wrote this system, and in my opinion have done superb job at creating something which works in nearly all hardware and software configurations, for nearly all users. Other than their specific disabling of a couple of services, with SP2, there have been very few real complaints from the knowledgeble about Microsofts default services configuration. Just trust them, and perform your few specific changes, registry and or services yourself.