Do Not Disable: Disabling this service will impact essential functionality or prevent specific roles or features from functioning correctly.

OK to Disable: This service provides functionality that is useful to some but not all enterprises, and security-focused enterprises that don't use it can safely disable it.

Should Disable: A security-focused enterprise will most likely prefer to disable this service and forego its functionality (see additional details below).

Each service on the system is categorized as follows: Beginning with Windows Server 2019, these guidelines are configured by default. The guidance is only for Windows Server 2016 with Desktop Experience (unless used as a desktop replacement for end users). For those customers, Microsoft® is providing the accompanying guidance regarding which services can safely be disabled for this purpose. However, some enterprise customers may prefer a more security-focused balance for their Windows PCs and servers, one that reduces their attack surface to the absolute minimum, and may therefore wish to fully disable all services that are not needed in their specific environments. These defaults were chosen carefully for each service to balance performance, functionality, and security for typical customers. Different services have different default startup policies: some are started by default (automatic), some when needed (manual), and some are disabled by default and must be explicitly enabled before they can run. The Windows operating system includes many system services that provide important functionality.

Applies to: Windows Server 2022, Windows Server 2019, Windows Server 2016

Windows 7 audio service is not running