Use Hardware Profiles to Troubleshoot Services

  • Article

Applies To: Windows Server 2008

You can use the Services snap-in in conjunction with predefined hardware profiles to troubleshoot newly installed services. For example, by associating a service with two different hardware profiles (one profile in which the service is enabled and a second profile in which the service is disabled), you could more easily troubleshoot any hardware problems that might occur with a newly installed service, such as a driver not loading properly.

Membership in Account Operators, Domain Admins, or Enterprise Admins, or equivalent, is the minimum required to complete this procedure. Review the details in "Additional considerations" in this topic.

To enable or disable a service for a hardware profile

  1. In the details pane, right-click the service that you want to enable or disable, and then click Properties.

  2. On the Log On tab, click the hardware profile that you want to configure.

  3. Click Enable or Disable, and then click OK.

Additional considerations

  • To perform this procedure, you must be a member of the Account Operators group, the Domain Admins group, the Enterprise Admins group, or you must have been delegated the appropriate authority. As a security best practice, consider using Run as to perform this procedure.

  • Use caution when you disable services by using this procedure. If you disable a service for a certain hardware profile, the Hardware Profile settings override the Startup type setting for that service.

  • In most cases, we recommend that you do not change the Allow service to interact with desktop setting. If you allow the service to interact with the desktop, any information that the service displays on the desktop will also be displayed on an interactive user's desktop. A malicious user could then take control of the service or attack it from the interactive desktop.

  • If you receive a Connection Manager error message when you open the Properties dialog box for a service, verify that the Remote Registry service is running on the specified computer. If the Remote Registry service is not running, or if the specified computer is running Windows NT 4.0, you cannot view or modify hardware profile settings, but you can perform any other actions.