Services are the various background processes that the Windows operating system is running, as well as other third party applications. Essentially, every action that occurs within Windows is governed by and uses one or more services to carry itself out.

For an idea of the list of things that the typical Windows services oversee, go to 'computer management/services and applications/services' and enlarge the 'description' column.

Services can be configured with one of three settings, disabled, manual and automatic. Automatic services will be started every time Windows is loaded, while manual services must be activated by the user via an executable file or command. Disabled services are, well, disabled.

Generally speaking, playing around with services is not recommended as the majority of them are critical to the function of the operating system. There are certain exceptions to this though, which is why it is wise to know the location and functionality of this screen.

Third party services may have undesirable effects and need to be disabled, and even certain native Windows services may need to be stopped occasionally.

Once excellent example of this is the messenger service. Used in many other versions of Windows to enable internet messaging from the command prompt, messenger's implementation in Windows 2000/XP allows it to be used for unrespectable remote advertising purposes, to incredibly annoying effect.

While many 'spam-killer' software packages advertise the ability to block these pop-ups as part of their list of essential services, stopping them yourself simply requires disabling the messenger service, since its functionality has been superceded by Instant Messaging programs such as MSN messenger anyway.

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