I have a network critical Windows 7 service. It must start before any network related service on the system, or that network service may fail. My service requires that Winsock is fully initialized by the time it runs.
How can I coerce Windows to load my service at the appropriate time? i.e. Immediately after Winsock is available.
I used the LoadOrder utility by MS Sysinternals. Found out the group should be "NetworkProvider". Also, since the loader loads in lexicographical alphabetical order, I named my process prefixing "Z" so it will load last in the "NetworkProvider" LoadOrderGroup.