Window Station and Desktop Creation

The system automatically creates the interactive window station. When an interactive user logs on, the system associates the interactive window station with the user's logon session. The system also creates the default input desktop for the interactive window station.

When a noninteractive process such as a Win32 service attempts to connect to Win32 and no window station exists for the process' logon session, Win32 attempts to create a window station and desktop for the session. The name of the created window station is based on the logon session identifier, and the desktop is named "Default." The discretionary access control lists (DACLs) for the window station and desktop grant the following accesses to the service's user account:

Window Station: WINSTA_READATTRIBUTES | WINSTA_ACCESSCLIPBOARD | WINSTA_CREATEDESKTOP | WINSTA_ACCESSGLOBALATOMS | WINSTA_EXITWINDOWS | STANDARD_RIGHTS_REQUIRED

Desktop: DESKTOP_READOBJECTS | DESKTOP_WRITEOBJECTS | DESKTOP_CREATEWINDOW | DESKTOP_CREATEMENU | DESKTOP_HOOKCONTROL | DESKTOP_ENUMERATE | STANDARD_RIGHTS_REQUIRED

A process can use the CreateWindowStation function to create a new window station, and the CreateDesktop function to create a new desktop.