Tools and tips for managing fundamental components of the Windows architecture
Windows' services are central to the function of the OS and your loaded applications. Your system hosts dozens of services that control just about everything you can do with Windows. They enable actions from logging on to file-and-print functionality to supporting legacy networks. In this first part of a two-part series, I give you a definition of services and what they do as well as tools and tips about how to manage them. I discuss the services available in Windows 2000 Server, Standard Edition without service packs applied (the other Win2K server products and Win2K Professional have different service options). The information I provide here sets the foundation for configuring and performance-tuning your Win2K services, which I'll discuss in Part 2.
What Is a Service?
The Windows NT architecture has always used the services model (i.e., operational modules that encapsulate specific system functions). For example, Win2K's Indexing Service contains all the compiled code and interfaces necessary to index content on your server. Other applications and services can rely on and use the Indexing Service to provide even more functionality. A case in point is Microsoft SQL Server 2000's cross-store search function, which uses the Indexing Service to let you search for content across files and directories, on the Web, in SQL Server databases, and even in the Microsoft Exchange Server Web Store.
Isolating functions neatly into individual services makes the functions more manageable and easier to use. In addition, the isolation gives you fine-grained control over execution and availability of the OS or application features, helps you troubleshoot problems, and lets you easily access system information, such as network properties and performance counters.
A service can be a core part of the OS's Service Controller, which is the services.exe file in the \winnt\system32 directory. You can also find running services on the Processes tab in the Task Manager dialog box. A service can also be an application or the compartmentalized functionality of a server application such as SQL Server or Exchange. For example, installing Exchange loads a new selection of services that makes up the application's messaging and collaboration functionality. You can even set an individual end-user or desktop application to run as a system service.
Service Administration
Managing services on your Win2K Server system is fairly straightforward. Log on to your server as Administrator or to an account in the Administrators group that lets you change services' settings. The Microsoft Management Console (MMC) Computer Management snap-in gives you complete control over services' attributes and execution and lets you view services' status. To access the Computer Management snap-in, click Start, Services, Programs, Administrative Tools, or right-click the My Computer icon on your desktop and select Manage. In the Computer Management window, which Figure 1 shows, expand the Services and Applications tree and click Services. The right pane will list all the installed services on your system, regardless of whether they're running.
Right-clicking a service brings up a menu of tasks, which Table 1 defines. You can also use the icon that accompanies each listed service to start, stop, pause, or restart the service. Just select the service and click the appropriate icon.
By default, the Computer Management console displays five columns of information for each currently installed service: Name, Description, Status, Startup Type, and Log On As. However, you can configure the Computer Management console by selecting Choose Columns from the View menu. At the resulting dialog box, you can select the data that you want the console to display.
To view a service's properties, right-click or double-click the service name and select Properties from the pop-up menu. Figure 2 shows the Properties dialog box for the Fax Service. This dialog box offers far more control than NT 4.0 provides. On the General tab, you can't change the service name, but you can change both the display name and the description, which might help you organize your services in the management interface for easier recognition and use. The General tab also displays the path to the service's executable file. The Fax Service is a standalone executable that the system runs as a service, whereas other system services, such as the Alerter service, are part of the core Windows functionality and the OS's Service Controller. From the Startup type drop-down list on the General tab, you can select whether the system service or application is loaded automatically or manually or is disabled. Table 2 outlines these options. To govern how the Fax Service operates, you can change the Service status parameter to Start, Stop, Pause, or Resume. In the Start parameters text box, you can specify start parameters that you want the system to pass to the service when it loads, such as file locations and control attributes.