In computing, mechanisms and techniques for managing services often differ by operating system. Examples of operating system service management are:
- In several Unix and Unix-like operating systems, init.d scripts, used by the init process, are used to control services.
- Sun Microsystem's Solaris 10 operating environment uses the Service Management Facility.
- Microsoft Windows uses INSTSRV and SRVANY programs, see also Windows service and Service Control Manager,
- Cygwin, a collection of free software tools that allows Microsoft Windows to function similarly to a Unix system, uses a tool called cygrunsrv.
- Apple's Mac OS X uses launchd or SystemStarter, depending on the version of the system software.
- Some Linux-distros such as Canonical Ltd.'s Ubuntu and Google's Chrome OS use Upstart.
- runit