This document contains summaries all of the services available for the Windows Server 2003 family of operating systems. The services are listed in alphabetical order by display name. Following a description of each service, a table lists key information about the service.
Windows Server 2003 System Services Reference
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Eugenia Loli
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After reading that document I wonder what happened to Bill Gates’ vision that “Windows NT will be a better Unix than Unix” (1992). If I want to build a DNS server, I don’t need Remote Procedure Call (required), Themes management, and other useless services sucking up resources. And it doesn’t make any difference if you can disable them or not, for a Server operating system the multimedia overhead should not be there (yes Solaris, AIX, and Linux has similar things and it can be removed from all of them with no ill effects). It is real hard to attack something that is not installed, either locally or remotely.
Microsoft is playing hardball in releasing lots of FUD for the Unix admin to switch, the “Resource Kits” included in magazines like SysAdmin and Dr. Dobbs’ Journal illustrate how much Microsoft thinks of the Unix threat. What Microsft needs to do is design their OS not to depend so much on services based on client interaction and make it secure by allowing administrators to remove (not disable) unwanted services and commit to a secure remote communication method (Secure Shell) that is not tied to a resource stream (Terminal Services). Microsoft also needs to make their server OS multi-user and make the GUI an option, not a necessity. Only then will the serious Unix admin start looking at Microsoft’s offerings without so much contempt.
If the services are disabled, they aren’t loaded or running and there is no overhead. Server 2003 does not require a GUI. It can run headless. How is NT not multi-user?
I agree with you. And you should be able to apply patches without the need of rebooting. I mean, rebooting servers is not an option. Not where I work at least.
Running headless and not having a GUI is 2 different things.
So, basically you’re referring to commandline scripting?
This is currently offered via WSH. Though MS will greatly improve upon this in Longhorn (possibly pre-Longhorn) with MSH.
http://download.microsoft.com/download/3/8/1/38198a72-294d-46c3-93b…
I’m using MSH since some time now, and it’s quite nice and powerful. But considering the developers of the shell are fans of ksh, you’ll recognize a lot of similarities, something which will at the end just lead to another upcry of a certain slice of the Internet population, which will cry “OMGSUX!!! M$ copies *NIX!!!11” yet again.
So, basically you’re referring to commandline scripting?
This is currently offered via WSH. Though MS will greatly improve upon this in Longhorn (possibly pre-Longhorn) with MSH.
But I want BASH, the whole UNIX file system structure. If I want to use CLI, I’ll install a UNIX, until then, Windows is yet another desktop operating system on steroids trying to play with the big end of town. The day Microsoft says, “Windows NT is stuffed, lets base our next operating system on FreeBSD”, things will remain the same. There needs to be a dramatic move away from win32 to fix the problems associated with Windows.
This is pretty closed–minded. Why does every OS have to be some n*x derivative? If you want n*x, just use n*x. It’d be pretty boring if everything was the same. Not to mention that the more platforms that share the same code, the more problems will arise that affect every platform in the same way and open them to exploit at the same time because they all use the same files.
There is a move from Win32 which fixes problems present in both n*x and Windows, and it’s called WinFX and .NET.
Services for UNIX is now available as a free download from the Microsoft website. It includes the Interix subsystem, which allows you to run Korn shell, C Shell or Bash on top of the Windows kernel.
Interix ports of bash and many common UNIX utilities can be found on Interop Systems’ website.
why do people always talk about gui overhead as if we are still using 486 CPUs? The overhead is very little, especialy on todays hardware, not an issue, IMO.
GUI = million lines of code = millionof possible entries point for a hacker = a lot of cpu cycle for nothing when you only need a ssh connection,
moreover our server do not require a radeon 9800 otherwise it is a game station 🙂