Why Do Certain Win32 Technologies Misbehave in NT Services

Keywords: 	   NT Services

Here is an article from Microsoft's database that addresses this issue.

Particularly note the following:

"I'd like to emphasize that a process launched from a service using the CreateProcess API is not a service itself and should not be referred to as a service. It is definitely a background process running in the same "environment" as the service�but that's it. The documentation of the Windows NT Resource Kit misleads users into thinking that using the Srvany utility will magically turn their application into a service. This is not true. The utility just launches your application via a CreateProcess API call. This is very similar to the AT command available on Windows NT. But even though your app launched via CreateProcess is technically not a service, it is still running in the same "environment," so many of my comments will also apply to it.

In this article, I will describe the environmental differences between a service and a process launched by the interactive user. I define the interactive user as somebody who logs onto a Windows NT machine via the Ctrl+Alt+ Delete secured key combination dialog box.

I wanted to make this very clear since you can technically have other processes running in different security contexts that can be considered interactive. In addition to the differences, I will point out some items you should consider when designing a service and the solutions to the problems caused by the environmental differences."


http://www.microsoft.com/msj/0398/service2.htm

Article ID:   W13564

Filename:   Why Do Certain Win32 Apps Misbehave in NT Services.txt

File Created: 2001:01:29:15:06:40

Last Updated: 2001:01:29:15:06:40

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Why Do Certain Win32 Technologies Misbehave in NT Services