Non-Technical Description |
Technical Description |
A Service is an application that runs in the background to provide services to other applications. One of the best examples of a service, the 'Windows Firewall/Internet Connection Sharing (ICS)' (SharedAccess) service. The SharedAccess service is a transparent layer between the internet and applications managing internet traffic (e.g. Internet Firewall) and transparently sharing the internet connection with other computers running the protocol (e.g. Internet Gateway Service). |
A Service is an executable image launched and managed by the operating system (by Services.exe). |
There are 6 major Service / Device Driver types :
|
|
Type |
Description |
Appears Under |
|
1 |
Kernel |
Kernel Drivers are the lowest level of driver, they have unrestricted access to the system. |
Device Manager. |
|
2 |
File System |
File System Drivers are a specific type of kernel driver. |
Services |
|
4 |
Flags |
Flag to indicate that parameters are passed to this Device Driver. |
|
|
8 |
Unknown flag. |
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|
16 |
Specifies a Service that obeys the service control protocol, can run in a process by itself, can be started by the Services Controller. |
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|
32 |
Specifies a service that can share a process with other services. |
There are 3 Service startup types and 5 Driver startup types:
|
|
Name |
Description |
Type |
|
0 |
Boot |
Device Driver is loaded during bootup to provide low level access to a device for kernel mode applications. |
Kernel Driver |
|
1 |
System |
Device Driver is loaded after the kernel setup and before the GUI is created. |
Device Driver |
|
2 |
Automatic |
Service starts automaticly when the system has finished booting and just after creation of the desktop. |
All Types |
|
3 |
Manual/Demand |
Service can be started by an application or the user through the Services manager API. |
|
|
4 |
Disabled |
Service cannot be started through the Services manager. |