Windows service power

[aewarnick]

1. Does a Windows service always have administrative rights?
If not, can it?
2. Can a service run a .msi to install a program without any user logged on?

[PeejAvery]

Services don't have rights. As a service, they executed by an administrative login.

[Allan Olesen]

As far as I know (and that is not very far) most services are owned by a "user" called System. The System user actually has higher privileges than an administrative user.

Edit:
For each service, you can configure which user the service shall run as. Go to Control Panel -> Administrative tools -> Services.
Right click on a service and select Properties.
Select tab #2, called "Log on".

[aewarnick]

Services run when Windows boots, not when a user logs in, correct?

[PeejAvery]

Services run when Windows boots, not when a user logs in, correct?
Some yes, some no. If you look at the processes list, you can see some that load with the user as SYSTEM and some with your user.