When installed on a Windows PC, the M5 Monitor service runs as a Microsoft Windows service (formerly known as NT service). This topic describes system level background and administrative tasks to ensure the service will start automatically when the system reboots. These system administration tasks are typically unneeded unless there are compatibility issues with the M5 Monitor Service installation and agency domain policies.

 

The installation process will register the M5 Monitor Service as a Microsoft Windows service and configure it to start automatically when the system reboots. launching the Services application from Windows Administrative Tools (Figure 17) will provide manual control over the M5 Monitor Service and allow changing of the default startup properties.

Figure 17. Services administration utility to control the M5 Monitor Service running on Windows.

 

The PTAGIS M5 Monitor Service listed in the Services utility should always have a status of Running as shown in Figure 17.

 

NOTE: a status of Running does not indicate that the M5 Monitor Service is connected to transceivers and performing data collection; it only indicates the service is available for connection to the M5 Control Panel application which can then be used to configure and control the internal site monitoring services that perform actual data collection. These internal site monitoring services are supervised by the M5 Monitor Service and can be independently started and stopped via the M5 Control Panel.

 

Double-clicking the PTAGIS M5 Monitor Service item will open a dialog box to manage and configure this service (Figure 18).

 

Figure 18. Windows service properties for the PTAGIS M5 Monitor Service.

 

By default, the Startup type is set to Automatic (Delayed Start) as shown in Figure 18. This setting will ensure the service automatically starts 120 seconds after the machine has restarted. This allows system networking features to be fully initialized before (see the Startup topic). The service is configured to Log On as the Local System account. This account has the necessary privileges to allow the automated features of the M5 Monitor Service to run unattended without user interaction. The Recovery tab of this dialog allows customization of how service startup failures are handled. Refer to Microsoft documentation for more information on administering Windows services.