What Is a Service?
A Windows 2000 service is an executable image that runs as a background task. Services are controlled by the Service Control Manager (SCM) and, for the most part, are independent of the user (or lack thereof) sitting at the console. Services can automatically start at the time of system boot, a user (using a number of tools) can manually start them, or some other program can start them programmatically.
Note
You'll notice my use of the term "for the most part" when I said that services are independent of any interactive user sessions. It is possible for a service to draw user-interface objects and interact with the console. However, it is widely considered poor programming practice to implement services that have a user interface ...
Get Microsoft® Windows® 2000 Security Handbook now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
