Description and service settings under Windows XP

The service descriptions here are for Windows XP but they can also apply to certain versions of Windows 9x and 2000. The configuration of common services in these different operating systems is the same.

Note 2: To perform these changes you must have administrator rights on the PC.

Windows XP, like Windows NT and 2000, starts a number of services at the start up of the PC. This could be anything from the USB support to printer management. These services perform tasks in the background and use some of your PC’s memory.
A large number of these services are not useful and can therefore be disabled from automatically starting with the computer.

The services are accessible from “Start”, “Control Panel”, “Administration Tools”, and “Services”.

You should see the following window:

In the Name column, you will have a complete list of all the installed services under Windows XP.
The following column will give you a complete description of what each does.

The “State” column will indicate if the service is running or not, which will tell you if Windows automatically starts it at boot or not.

The “Startup Type” column will tell you have the service is started meaning automatically, manually or if it is disabled.

To change any of these services you will need to double click on the one that you want to modify and a new window will open:

There will be three service start up options made available to you:

• Automatic: When you select this option, the service will automatically start with Windows. This will increase the time that it takes to load Windows, but you should be aware that there are certain services that are required for Windows XP to function, like the Remote Procedure Call (RPC).
  Some services will also be executed as they are dependencies (see the last tab), and some other services will require these to function.
• Manually: This option allows a service to be executed only when asked by the user. It is therefore not loaded into the computers memory but it can be started at any time if needed. This operation can be perfect for saving system resources and will speed up the boot time without completely deactivating the service in case you require it at a latter stage, like the print spooler for example.
• Disabled: When this option is selected, the service will not be loaded by Windows and can not even be requested by the user. This option is ideal for security problems as it completely prevents the execution of the service.