Windows services and servers

The terms Perforce Service and p4d refer to the P4 Server that manages depot files and the associated metadata for P4 clients, such as P4V. The p4s.exe service and the p4d.exe Server are copies of the same executable. The copies are identical except for the filenames.

p4s service

p4d Server

Perforce is the service name that underlies the display name.

As of 2025.1, by default, p4s.exe starts at boot time as a Windows service with Helix Core Server as the service display name.

A user can manually invoke p4d.exe from a command prompt to obtain a Server process.

The Windows LocalSystem account owns P4ROOT and the librarian A subsystem of the server that stores, manages, and provides the archive files to other subsystems of the server. See also 'archive files'. files that the service manages. The librarian files are accessible only to a user with Windows Administrator access.

To allow the service to run under a regular user account, make sure that the user can read and write to the registry keys and access the directory structure under P4ROOT. See the Perforce Knowledge Base article, Changing the user account the Windows service runs under.

 The P4ROOT and librarian files are accessible only to the user who invoked p4d.exe from the command prompt.