Core Services handles communication between the consoles and the other Secure Configuration Manager components. Core Services must be running before you can use Secure Configuration Manager.
The Secure Configuration Manager setup program automatically starts Core Services for you. However, you can also manually start Core Services. To manually start the Core Services service, use the Services utility in the Windows Control Panel.
When you run Core Services for the first time, it generates a set of authentication keys called domain keys. If you are using a single Core Services, back up the domain keys for your Core Services to a disk or to another computer in case you need to re-install Core Services at any point. Otherwise, when you install a new Core Services, new keys are created and you cannot access the agents you registered with the set of domain keys generated by the initial Core Services installation.
Console administrators, console users assigned to the Secure Configuration Manager Administrator’s role, can use the Core Services Configuration Utility to configure Core Services. For more information, see the Help for the Core Services Configuration Utility.