Service Manager, Manage Services, Drivers Locally and Remotely
Tech savvy Windows users know that they can manage the operating systems' Services either from the System Configuration tool msconfig or the Service management software Services which can be launched by typing in services.msc in the run box.
Service Manager now is a free third party program that home users and administrators can use to manage services and drivers not only on a local PC running Windows, but also on other PCs of a computer network.
The program is offered as a portable version and installer. I personally had problems with the installer (it would simply hang until its process was killed) and no problems whatsoever with the portable version.
When you first run Service Manager you will see all Windows Services in a table. Services are listed with their name, type, start type, status, process ID, account, path, version, language and activation time among other values.
A click on a table header sorts all services this way, which can for instance be handy to display all started services or services owned by a specific company next to each other. When you enable admin tasks you can manage one or multiple services directly from within the program interface. It is then for instance possible to start, stop or restart services.
A double-click on a service opens a new window that lists all service parameters. Here it is also possible to change the service and start type, as well as user account and password the service is started from.
A filter at the top offers to hide or display active, inactive or Microsoft services. You could uncheck the MS box to hide all Microsoft services from the listing.
The second option that the program offers is to display Driver related information in a similar listing. You can either display drivers and services mixed, or only one of them. Drivers are also displayed with their name, type, start type and a handful of additional values. A double-click opens a similar detailed listing of parameters, and the links at the bottom of the interface offer the same management options like starting or stopping drivers on the system.
The third option offered by the program is to connected to a remote host to display its services and drivers in the listing.
The menu bar at the top links to several interesting features. This includes options to export the listing into a csv file, to start the Event Viewer or Task Manager, or an option to create a new system service.
Windows users can download Service Manager from the developer website. The program is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Microsoft Windows operating system.
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