Windows Management Instrumentation (winmgmt) Service Defaults in Windows XP
Provides a common interface and object model to access management information about operating system, devices, applications and services. If this service is stopped, most Windows-based software will not function properly. If this service is disabled, any services that explicitly depend on it will fail to start.
Default Settings
| Startup type: | Automatic |
| Display name: | Windows Management Instrumentation |
| Service name: | winmgmt |
| Service type: | share |
| Error control: | ignore |
| Object: | LocalSystem |
| Path: | %SystemRoot%\system32\svchost.exe -k netsvcs |
| File: | %SystemRoot%\system32\wbem\WMIsvc.dll |
| Registry key: | HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\winmgmt |
Default Behavior
Windows Management Instrumentation is a Win32 service. In Windows XP it is starting automatically along with the operating system. Then the Windows Management Instrumentation service is running as LocalSystem in a shared process of svchost.exe. Other services and drivers are allowed to run in the same process. If the Windows Management Instrumentation fails to load or initialize, Windows XP start up proceeds without error messages, but information about the failure is being written into Event Log.
Dependencies
Windows Management Instrumentation depends on the following system components:
The following components depend on Windows Management Instrumentation:
Restore Default Startup Configuration of Windows Management Instrumentation
Before you begin doing this, make sure that all the services on which Windows Management Instrumentation depends are configured by default and function properly. See the list of dependencies above.1. Run the Command Prompt.
2. Copy the commands below, paste them into the command window and press ENTER:
sc config winmgmt start= auto
sc start winmgmt
3. Close the command window and restart the computer.
The winmgmt service is using the WMIsvc.dll file that is located in the C:\Windows\system32\wbem directory. If the file is removed or corrupted, read this article to restore its original version from Windows XP installation media.