The Services MMC Snap-In has two views namely Standard and Extended. The Extended view provides information about the selected service in the left side of the details pane. Also, it includes links for starting, stopping, or pausing the selected service. If you have a small monitor and need more screen real estate, you can configure the Services MMC to open in Standard view by default.

Open Services MMC Snap-In in Author mode

You can use MMC in author mode to create new consoles or modify existing consoles. Follow these steps to set Services MMC start in Standard View by default.

1. Click Start, Run and type %windir%\system32

2. Backup the file Services.msc and store in a safe location

3. Right-click the file Services.msc, and choose Author

The Services MMC Snap-In opens in Author mode, in which you can customize the window size, pane width, view mode (Standard or Extended) etc.

4. Customize the Snap-In accordingly.

5. From the File menu, click Save to save your settings.

6. Exit the Services MMC, which is currently in Author mode.

Now open Services MMC (services.msc) normally and see if the settings are applied.

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10 Comments

  1. JW
    said this on Friday, May 7th 2010 9:48 pm

    I finally found a way to resolve the issue of computer mgmt:

    Go to C:\WINDOWS\system32

    Right click on compmgmt.msc and select Author

    Go to services and applications and change extended to standard. Click File and then click Save.

    Next time you open computer mgmt it will show services in standard view.

  2. James
    said this on Friday, May 7th 2010 7:19 pm

    Figured out the answer with Netware Admin’s help.

    Edit compmgmt.msc in Author mode! =)

  3. NetwareAdmin
    said this on Friday, May 7th 2010 2:48 pm

    Starting any *.MSC /a enables Author Mode.
    DFRG.MSC /a
    SERVICES.MSC /a

    Do your back up first; for any of this you’ll need administrator rights…
    Start/Run Type in CMD hit ENTER
    ————————
    At the command prompt type…
    xcopy “%windir%\system32\*.msc” “”%windir%\system32\ORIG_MSC\”
    Hit ENTER
    Check your work by typing
    dir “%windir%\system32\ORIG_MSC\”

    This should list all of MSC backups; you know where to find them later. This will also list MSC’s that you, maybe, didn’t know existed.

    Then you are set to open Author Mode on ANY MSC without fear of losing default MSC settings.

    Easy access to them all from the RUN command is done with this command…

    Start/Run…
    %windir%\system32\services.msc /a

    Look at the FILE menu… Author Mode gives you SAVE ability!!!
    Create shortcuts to these MSC’s where ever you want… Add the /a switch for Author Mode.
    Omit the /a switch for normal operation.

    I hope using the /a switch makes sense!

  4. James
    said this on Friday, April 2nd 2010 1:53 am

    I ask JW’s question again. Anyway to get this default view setting to occur within the Computer Management as well? =)

  5. said this on Thursday, January 14th 2010 9:39 am

    I was fighting with this inconvenience for years!!! Thanks for the description!!!

  6. JW
    said this on Friday, November 6th 2009 5:42 pm

    Thanks for the change information. I have wanted to change that for awhile. However, it only works when I run services by itself. It does not come up as standard when I go to the services through Computer Management.

    Does anybody know a way to change that section to show up as standard by default?

  7. said this on Tuesday, June 9th 2009 9:18 pm

    [...] for this for ages, but at some point I got my google search right and this is what it turned out; http://www.winhelponline.com/blog/configure-services-mmc-to-open-in-standard-view-by-default/ Credits to Ramesh Srinivasan for writing this short [...]

  8. said this on Tuesday, June 9th 2009 9:02 pm

    For Vista you will have to ‘run as administrator’..

  9. a s lorant
    said this on Thursday, May 7th 2009 7:41 pm

    I have toshiba sattelite pro 2100 running on xp2000pack 2 ,about 12 months ago i tried to load a electronic workshop manual on it but didn,t load correctly after that when i’ve tried to defrag it. It will not let me do it it says mmc cannot open file c:\windows\system32\dfrg.msc it says this maybe because the file dos’nt exist is not a mmc console or was created by a later version of mmc this also maybe because you do not have sufficient access rights to the file. this also happens when i try many of the short cuts can you please help thank a lot ,Tony Lorant

  10. RT
    said this on Sunday, January 18th 2009 9:57 am

    Save is disabled in vista – well at least in mine. You can’t save as something else and copy over it – it won’t let you. What the…

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