Windows XP in a Nutshell, Second Edition

Appendix G. Services

Table 1 lists the background services installed by default in Windows XP Professional. Note that some of the following may not be present in your system (depending on your Windows edition or installed components), and you may see some services on your own computer that aren’t listed here (which may have been added after you installed Windows XP).

One of the advantages of services over standard applications and drivers is that they are run when Windows starts, but before a user logs in. So, for example, you could have an FTP daemon or VNC server service running even when nobody is logged in.

Services can be started, stopped, and configured to automatically start with the Services utility (services.msc). By default, most of the services listed in Table 1 will remain dormant (stopped) until started by the user. For more information on services, see the “Microsoft Management Console” in Chapter 4.

Table G-1. Services in Windows XP

Name	Filename	Description
Alerter	svchost.exe	Notifies selected users and computers of administrative alerts. If the service is stopped, programs that use administrative alerts will not receive them. If this service is disabled, any services that explicitly depend on it will fail to start.
Application Layer Gateway Service	alg.exe	Provides support for third-party protocol plug-ins for Internet Connection Sharing and the Internet Connection Firewall.
Application Management	svchost.exe	Provides software installation ...