CompTIA A+® Certification All-In-One For Dummies®, 2nd Edition

3.7. Understanding Windows Services

In this section, I introduce you to the concept of a service within the OS and then give an overview of some of the most popular services found in Windows.

A service is a software component within the OS that provides a specific feature. For example, the spooler service provides printing functionality. For you to print, you must have the spooler service running. When you are troubleshooting a system that isn't working properly, make sure that you check that the service that manages that aspect of the OS is running. You might also want to restart the service if it is running, which is essentially rebooting that service.

3.7.1. Restarting a Windows service

To stop, start, or restart a service in Windows XP, follow these steps:

1. Choose StartControl Panel.

2. Choose Performance and MaintenanceAdministrative Tools.

3. In the Administrative Tools window, double-click the Services icon.

4. After the Services console opens, you can stop, start, or restart a service by right-clicking the service and then choosing the appropriate command from the contextual menu, as shown in Figure 3-22.

Figure 3.22. Stopping a service in Windows XP.

After you know how to stop and start ...