First off I want to say what I am covering in this tip is a bit on the advanced side, and requires some understanding of how services work in Windows.

An incredibly powerful tool made available by Microsoft is the aptly named “srvany.exe” utility. With this utility you can run any program as a Windows Service and get all the benefits services offer. This Microsoft KB article explains exactly how to use the tool and this article gives a good walk-through complete with screenshots.

In the past, I have used this tool on both Windows XP and Server 2003 to launch applications with a COM interface available to the network only when the application is running (MapPoint 2003 stands out). This way I can insure the program will start automatically and be available without having to manually open it after a reboot.