Windows and Services

[CookingWithGas]

I have a program that I want to run every time Windows (XP Home) starts up, even if no one has logged in. Does such a program have be written to be a service, or is it possible to simply identify a program as a service for this to happen?

[Duckster]

How to Modify the List of Programs that Run When You Start Windows XP (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314488)

[CookingWithGas]

How to Modify the List of Programs that Run When You Start Windows XP (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314488)
The first line, and subsequent instructions, refer to "To create or modify the list of programs that start automatically when you log on to your computer, follow these steps: "

I want a program to start when the machine starts, before anyone logs in.

[ultrafilter]

Wiki actually has a pretty decent article on Windows services (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_service). The external links should help to get you started.

[ParentalAdvisory]

http://www.gamedev.net/reference/articles/article1899.asp

Seems to require some knowledge of programming.

[Duckster]

I want a program to start when the machine starts, before anyone logs in.


I sit corrected.

How about:

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/strun.html
http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml

[Number]

As ultrafilter's wiki link points out, you can create a service using Microsoft-published tools by following the steps in this Knowledge Base article (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/137890).

The article was written for the Windows NT version of the utilities, but you can get newer ones in the Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=9d467a69-57ff-4ae7-96ee-b18c4790cffd). Note that you don't have to install the package; the individual tools can be extracted with any unzipping program.

Not all programs will run correctly as services, and may require a lot of tweaking to get right.

[Khadaji]

You have to create it as a service. There are some good books on it, with some good examples on Amazon.

I have recently had to create several services for a project at work. I used Borland Builder, which provides a very nice class wrapper for it.