windows services 4

QoS RSVP; RSVP
Provides a mechanism for an application to nicely share bandwidth with other applications. (The name stands for Quality of Service Resource Reservation Protocol.) An application must be QoS-aware for this service to be used; the only common QoS-aware application that ships with Windows is NetMeeting. Leave this service set to Manual.

Remote Access Auto Connection Manager; RasAuto
With a dial-up connection, automatically dials the connection when it detects that a message must be sent to the remote network. Most commonly, this service is used to connect to a dial-up Internet service provider. If you have no dial-up connections (for example, if you use a cable modem or DSL), you can set this service to Disabled.

Remote Access Connection Manager; RasMan
Creates network connections and manages the Network Connections folder. ICF and ICS also require this service. In most cases, it will be running. Leave this service set to Manual so that it will start if needed.

Remote Desktop Help Session Manager; RDSessMgr
Supports the Remote Assistance feature of Windows XP. By default, Remote Assistance is not enabled and must be turned on (Control Panel, System, Remote). Because this feature could be a security risk, the most secure setting is to keep Remote Assistance disabled. If you are not using Remote Assistance, keep this service set to Manual or Disabled.

Remote Procedure Call (RPC); RpcSs
Supports RPC functionality that is used by many components of Windows. Leave this service set to Automatic. If this service is turned off, the computer will not boot.

Remote Procedure Call (RPC) Locator; RpcLocator
Helps other computers on the network find RPC-based programs on this computer. Because this is not a common situation for a workstation, you can usually set this service to Manual with no problem.

Remote Registry; RemoteRegistry
Lets a remote computer modify the Windows registry on your computer. For best security, you should disable this service. Giving this ability to a remote computer is sometimes useful for remote management tasks in a large corporation, but the potential for hard-to-detect abuse is great.

Removable Storage; NtmsSvc
Used to manage offline storage media such as magnetic tapes or CD-RWs. However, this service is not well documented and is totally unused on most systems. You can keep the service set to Manual so that it will start in the rare case in which it is needed. If you're curious, you can see the user interface in the Computer Management console; open Storage\Removable Storage.

Routing and Remote Access; RemoteAccess
Provides support for incoming dial-up and VPN connections. This service should be set to Manual or Disabled unless you want to provide remote access for the network through this computer.

Secondary Logon; seclogon (known as RunAs Service in Windows 2000)
Lets the system start a process under an alternative user account name. This service can be used by Scheduled Tasks or by administrators, and its setting should be left at Automatic.

Security Accounts Manager; SamSs
Manages user name and password information for some applications, along with Protected Storage. Leave this service set to Automatic.

Server; lanmanserver
Supports network file and printer sharing and RPC support. This service should usually be left set to Automatic. To prevent all incoming access to files on this system via file and printer sharing, remove the File And Printer Sharing For Microsoft Networks component from all network connections.

Shell Hardware Detection; ShellHWDetection
Sends information about newly detected hardware to applications, and implements AutoPlay functionality. Keep it at the default setting of Automatic.

Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP); SMTPSVC
Provides e-mail message transport, as part of IIS. If you do not need this service (and most users do not), you should stop it in the Internet Information Services console and then set it to Manual or Disabled. (Besides being a security risk for your system, an incorrectly configured SMTP server can be hijacked by spammers. You might find your IP address, or even your entire IP address range, placed on several "known to send spam" lists, such as the Realtime Blackhole list at http://mail-abuse.org/rbl/. Many mail servers refuse to accept messages from any server on these lists, as they assume that the messages are spam.)