Your computer is surprisingly self-sufficient. When you turn on the power, your machine knows how to boot itself up and start a great many programs and functions without you telling it how to do much of anything. Among these things that happen in the background, services are working hard to make the computer as user-friendly as possible. That is, of course, until one or more of your services goes south and doesn’t work properly any more.

Most people are familiar with a programs. But what’s a service? It’s simply a program that runs in the background. When you start your computer, the services kick on quietly, humming along under the radar to help you with things like monitoring for viruses or helping the printer work correctly.

Errors with Services

When something goes wrong with a service, you normally get an error message like …

“Error 1068: the dependency service failed to start.”

Of course, there are lots of services running, so there are several possibilities for errors 1068 and 1058 depending on which service actually breaks down.

Firstly, why are some files hidden? The answer is pretty straight forward. Hidden files and folders constitute those that, if altered, could have a major effect on the way your system performs. Hence, when Windows is first installed, it hides these elements to keep anyone from accidentally deleting, renaming or moving files that the operating system relies on.

All in all it’s a good policy, but occasionally, computer repair calls for making the exact types of changes they want to guard against. To accommodate actual IT repair, Windows makes it easy to view the hidden files and folders if you want. You just have to adjust the Folder Options in Windows Explorer.

Not to be confused with the web browser called Internet Explorer, Windows Explorer is a program installed on every Windows system. It constitutes the folder hierarchy you see whenever you click (My) Computer. We’ve all used it; it allows us to navigate down the hierarchy from disk to folder to folder, etc.

To show hidden files, just start by opening up Windows explorer. You can just go to My Documents if you want.

Your computer does lots of things in the background. You probably know a bit about programs running on your machine. And you might even know a bit about active processes that run as the behind-the-scenes component of an open application. But behind even those processes is another layer of functionality – services.

What Are Services?

At the very simplest level, a service is a small, helper program that runs in the background of your computer. When you turn on the computer, the services are one of the first things to get fired up and start working.  They make sure that everything starts up properly, has the right permissions, connects properly and - as you continue to use your computer - they help ensure that programs work correctly as well.

Unlike a process, an active service runs regardless of whether a given application is open.  This ensures that resources are always available for the components that need them.

How to Access Them

To see the services that are running on your computer right now, you simply need to pull up the Task Manager. Do this by clicking on Ctrl + Shift + Esc. And then clicking on the tab labeled “Services.”

In Windows XP, the task manager doesn’t list services, but you can still access them via the Services Manager.  Go to Control Panel ( » Performance and Maintenance) » Administrative Tools » Services.  This will pull up the Service Manager.

At first glance you can get a sense of how services are managed and distributed.

What happens when your “plug-and-play” device doesn’t play after you plug it in? Often you get an error–code, like Code 22. You see this particular error after you try to access the device. For example, you’ve plugged in the USB wire for your new scanner. You try to scan and you get “This device is disabled. (Code 22)”.

While not the sort of thing you were hoping to see when you turn on your new device, it’s not the end of the world – there are several things you can try to make your device work properly.

What is a Code 22 Error?

Obviously the error message tells you that a particular device has been disabled, but what does that really mean? A device is roughly some sort of equipment that you plug into your computer. A mouse, speakers, a scanner and printer all count as devices.

Communication between and device and the operating system is controlled by a specialized program called a driver.  You can learn more about drivers and how to install them here.