Windows Services are applications that can be automatically started when the operating system boots. They can run without having an interactive user logged on to the system. You can configure a Windows Service to be run from a specially configured user account; or from the system user account — a user account that has even more privileges than that of the system administrator.
Important | Windows Services don't run on Windows 95, 98, or ME; the NT kernel is a requirement. They do run on Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003. |
Note | Unless otherwise noted, when we refer to a service, we are referring to a Windows Service. |
Here are a few examples of services:
Simple TCP/IP Services is a service program that hosts some small TCP/IP servers: echo, daytime, quote, and others
World Wide Publishing Service is the service of the Internet Information Server (IIS)
Event Log is a service to log messages to the event log system
Microsoft Search is a service that creates indexes of data on the disk
You can use the Services administration tool, shown in Figure 36-1, to see all of the services on a system. On a Windows 2003 Server this program can be accessed be selecting Start Programs Administrative Tools Services; on Windows 2000 Professional and Windows XP the program is accessible through Settings Control Panel Administrative Tools Services.
Figure 36-1