Our second Q & A of the week comes from Tim via the reader feedback page. Remember to try our friendly forums for help too.

Q: I just finished reading your guide to Windows XP services . When I checked what services were present on my system and compared them to the list in the article, I found I had several additional ones. Does this mean I have viruses or spyware on my computer? I have scanned for viruses but it says I am clean. What should I do?

A: If you have installed much software on your Windows 2000/XP system, chances are that you will have a few extra services, as many programs install their own services into Windows as part of their normal operation. In general, any program that needs to run itself or a portion of itself constantly will install a service. In your case, the anti-virus software you are running is likely the source of several of the extra services you are seeing. The guide in the article was more of a general reference than an explicit checklist of what should be running on your XP system. I've added a line to the article to reflect this, to avoid further confusion.

If you are still concerned about the additional services, anti-virus and antispyware scans are still the best way to go. You did not mention using an antispyware tool, so download Microsoft antispyware or Ad-Aware (or both) and scan your computer again. If you still get a clean bill of health, chances are the extra services you are seeing are benign.