Session Manager Subsystem (smss.exe)

Session Manager Subsystem, or smss.exe, is a component of the Microsoft Windows NT operating system. It is executed during the startup process of Windows 2000, XP, 2003 and Vista. At this time it:

* Creates environment variables
* Starts the kernel and user modes of the Win32 subsystem (win32k.sys and csrss.exe), and any other subsystems listed in the Required value of the HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\SubSystems Registry key.
* Creates DOS device mappings (e.g. COM1, LPT and drive letters) listed at the HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\DOS Devices registry key.
* Creates virtual memory paging files
* Starts winlogon.exe, the Windows logon manager.

After the boot process is finished, the program resides in memory and can be seen running in the Windows Task Manager.


This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.