Windows Vista: Managing Services (Part 1)

All modern operating systems have several programs that run in the background. These programs are known as Services. Some of these services perform mundane tasks, while others perform critical system operations.

Unless you're performing some type of system maintenance or diagnostics, you will almost never need to worry about them. Most of the time they run quietly in the background and you won't even know that they're there.

Although, if you need to know how to access them, follow the instructions below:

Warning: If you disable any critical system services you can prevent Windows from working correctly. So make sure that you understand exactly what function a service does before you disable it. As always proceed at your own risk.

• From the Start menu select 'Control Panels', then open the 'Administrative Tools' folder.
• Double-click the Services icon. If you have the UAC enable it will ask you to confirm this action.
• When the Services management console opens, you will see a list of services installed on your computer.

In the next part of this article, I discuss how to manage the different services.