What Are Windows Services and Related Programs

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∟Configuring and Managing System Services

∟What Are Windows Services and Related Programs

This section describes Windows service related concepts and programs. A diagram is provided to illustrate how installed services, service programs, service configuration programs, and service control programs work together.

What is a Windows Service? A "Windows Service" is an thread of an execution process running continuously in the background without any user intervention. A "Windows Service" is similar in concept to a "Unix Daemon", or a "Background Job" in other operating systems.

There are several elements involved in creating, starting, and managing a "Windows Service":

The SCM (Service Control Manager) - A Windows system program, that manages installed services and running processes of started services. The SCM, services.exe, is automatically started at system boot time and running in the background.
A Service Program - An executable program that is be configured to run as a service. A service program needs to be specially coded to interact with the SCM.
An Installed Service - A registry entry defined to represent a service with several attributes like name, description, startup type, path of the service program, etc.
A Service Process - A running process resulted from starting an installed service.
A Registry Editing Program - A user application that allows you to edit registry entries, including installed services. An example of registry editors is "regedit.exe".
A Service Configuration Program - A user application that allows you to add, modify or delete installed services through SCM. An example of service configuration programs is "sc.exe".
A Service Control Program - A user application that allows you to start, pause, or stop installed services through SCM. Examples of service control programs are "msconfig.exe" and "services.msc".
A Process Control Program - A user application that allows you to view or end running processes. Examples of process control programs are "Task Manager" and "tasklist.exe".