System Services

The base services functions give applications access to the resources of the computer and the features of the underlying operating system, such as memory, file systems, devices, processes, and threads. An application uses these functions to manage and monitor the resources it needs to complete its work.

Applications can share code or information with other applications. Networking functions read from and write to communications ports as well as control the operating modes of these ports.

Applications handle special conditions during execution. For example, they can handle errors, log events, and exceptions. They can also use special functions to debug code and improve its performance. For example, the debugging functions permit single-step control of the execution of other processes, and the performance monitoring functions provide detailed information on process execution.

• Debugging and Error Handling
• Device I/O
• DLLs, Processes, and Threads
• File Services
• Indexing Service
• Interprocess Communications
• Memory
• Microsoft Virtual Server
• Performance Monitoring
• Power Management
• Terminal Services
• Windows Clustering
• Windows System Information

• Windows Server 2003 Technology Centers
• Windows 2000 Developer Support Center
• Related Communities for Windows XP