How can I prevent services from interacting with the desktop in Windows 2000 and later?

John Savill

July 31, 2002

1 Min Read
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A. Certain services directly interact with the desktop (e.g., to display messages). To stop an individual service's ability to interact, open the Computer Management console (go to Start, Programs, Administrative Tools, Computer Management), open the Services branch (go to Computer Management, Services and Applications, Services), select the service, and clear the "Allow Service to Interact with Desktop" check box. To stop all services (services will still be able to display errors), perform the following steps:

  1. Start a registry editor (e.g., regedit.exe).

  2. Navigate to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlWindows subkey.

  3. Double-click NoInteractiveServices, set the value to 1 to stop interaction (the default setting of 0 enables interaction), and click OK.

  4. Close the registry editor.

  5. Restart the computer for the change to take effect.

About the Author

John Savill

John Savill

https://savilltech.net

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