Winson-Talk

Application Layer Gateway service is a component of of Windows OS. It is required if you use a 3rd party firewall or Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) to connect to the internet. Do not end this program in task manager - you will lose all internet connectivity until next restart or login. 

It belongs to Norton AntiVirus 2003/4. Keep track of all events that occur within NAV and then writing the details of those events to the Activity Log.

This is the user-mode portion of the Win32 subsystem (with Win32.sys being the kernel-mode portion). Csrss stands for client/server run-time subsystem and is an essential subsystem that must be running at all times. Csrss is responsible for console windows, creating and/or deleting threads, and some parts of the 16-bit virtual MS-DOS environment.

This is the user shell, which we see as the familiar taskbar, desktop, and so on. This process isn’t as vital to the running of Windows as you might expect, and can be stopped (and restarted) from Task Manager, usually with no negative side effects on the system. 

“lsass.exe” is the Local Security Authentication Server. It verifies the validity of user logons to your PC/Server. It generates the process responsible for authenticating users for the Winlogon service. This process is performed by using authentication packages such as the default Msgina.dll. If authentication is successful, Lsass generates the user’s access token, which is used to launch the initial shell. Other processes that the user initiates inherit this token.

“navapsvc.exe” belongs to Norton AntiVirus.

This is the Services Control Manager, which is responsible for running, ending, and interacting with system services.

This is the session manager subsystem, which is responsible for starting the user session. This process is initiated by the system thread and is responsible for various activities, including launching the Winlogon and Win32 (Csrss.exe) processes and setting system variables. After it has launched these processes, it waits for either Winlogon or Csrss to end. If this happens “normally,” the system shuts down; if it happens unexpectedly, Smss.exe causes the system to stop responding (hang).

The spooler service is responsible for managing spooled print/fax jobs.

“Svchost.exe” (Generic Host Process for Win32 Services) is an integral part of Windows OS. It cannot be stopped or restarted manually. It manages 32-bit DLLs and other services. At startup, Svchost.exe checks the services portion of the registry to construct a list of services that it needs to load. In normal conditions multiple instances of Svchost.exe run at the same time. Each Svchost.exe session can contain a grouping of services, so that separate services can be run depending on how and where Svchost.exe is started. This allows for better control and debugging.

This process is a single thread running on each processor, which has the sole task of accounting for processor time when the system isn’t processing other threads. In Task Manager, expect this process to account for the majority of processor time.

The process “winlogon.exe” runs in the background. It’s a part of the Windows Login subsystem. Winlogon is necessary for user authorization and checks the Windows XP activation code.