Windows Service Monitor

Windows Service Monitor is a simple tool designed to replace the services.msc console of Windows. It lets you point out the exact services you want to keep a track of, and get notified whenever they get started or stopped. It doesn't include complex options or configuration settings, making it accessible to all types of users.

The setup procedure is fast and the only notable aspects about it is that it needs administrative rights and .NET Framework installed. Once it's done, the application creates an icon in the system tray area for quick access and automatically starts monitoring services.

You can bring up the main configuration panel to handpick the services you want to monitor by browsing a long list with available services and clicking a button to add them to the watchlist.

It's possible to add as many services as you want, as well as to create multiple profiles with different services, in order to seamlessly cycle through them from the tray icon's right-click menu.

Windows Service Monitor lets you rename and delete profiles, and it can be asked to automatically run at every system startup until further notice. Changes are immediately committed, and the tray icon's color indicates of all services are running (green) or any of them has stopped (yellow). Opening the context menu reveals a complete list with running and stopped services.

We haven't come across any stability issues in our tests, since the utility didn't hang, crash or prompt error messages. As expected, it had minimal impact on computer performance, running on low CPU and RAM. Although it doesn't feature rich options, Windows Service Monitor offers a simple solution for monitoring services and receiving alerts whenever any of them becomes inactive.