Service is a program that runs in the background; and we can start, stop or pause/resume the service depending on the need or requirement. PowerShell provides commands, to manage the services. I am going to explain, how to manage the services through this Article “PowerShell – Managing Services”.
Display List of Services: Get-Service cmdlet
PowerShell provides Get-Service cmdlet, to display the list of Services available in the Local or Remote System. Just you type “Get-Service” at the PowerShell command prompt; will display the list of all the services currently available in the Local System.
PS C:\> Get-Service Status Name DisplayName ------ ---- ----------- Running AdobeARMservice Adobe Acrobat Update Service Running AeLookupSvc Application Experience Running AGSService Adobe Genuine Software Integrity Se... ........... ........... Running WwanSvc WWAN AutoConfig
How to display the list of Services currently Running?
Get-Service returns all the services which are currently available in the system. To display the services which are currently RUNNING, we must take the help of the “Where-Object” command. This will apply the given condition on the result; and will display the result if the condition is satisfied. I will explain more about the “Where-Object” cmdlet, in another Article.
The below command is useful to list the services which are currently running on the local system:
PS C:\> Get-Service | Where-Object Status -EQ "Running" Status Name DisplayName ------ ---- ----------- Running AdobeARMservice Adobe Acrobat Update Service Running AGSService Adobe Genuine Software Integrity Se... ....... ....... Running WwanSvc WWAN AutoConfig
Stop the Service: Stop-Service cmdlet
To STOP the service, PowerShell provides a Stop-Service cmdlet. To STOP the Service, we need to pass the name of the service through its’ “-Name” parameter.
The above list shows the list of currently available services in the Local System. Lets’ try to STOP the service “AdobeARMservice”:
PS C:\> Stop-Service -Name AdobeARMservice PS C:\>
The above command stops the service “AdobeARMservice”. Do you want to check whether the service is STOPPED.?
PS C:\> Get-Service | Where-Object Name -EQ "AdobeARMservice" Status Name DisplayName ------ ---- ----------- Stopped AdobeARMservice Adobe Acrobat Update Service
Observe that, “AdobeARMservice” was STOPPED.
Start the Service : Start-Service cmdlet
Start-Service command is used to start the service which is available from the Local system or Remote system. Lets’ start the service, what we have stopped from the above Stop-Service command. The name of the service we want to start should pass through the “-Name” parameter.
PS C:\> Start-Service -Name AdobeARMservice PS C:\>
Suspend the Service: Suspend-Service cmdlet
Suspend-Service cmdlet is used to suspend (or pause) the service which is running on the Local or Remote system. That means the actions of the service will be temporarily PAUSED until the service is resumed.
Lets’ try to suspend the above service:
PS C:\> Suspend-Service -Name AdobeARMservice
Suspend-Service : Service 'Adobe Acrobat Update Service (AdobeARMservice)' cannot be suspended because the service does not support being suspended or resumed.
At line:1 char:1
+ Suspend-Service -Name AdobeARMservice
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : CloseError: (System.ServiceProcess.ServiceController:ServiceController) [Suspend-Service], ServiceCommandException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : CouldNotSuspendServiceNotSupported,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.SuspendServiceCommand
Suspend-Service : Service 'Adobe Acrobat Update Service (AdobeARMservice)' cannot be suspended due to the following error: Cannot pause AdobeARMservice service on computer '.'.
At line:1 char:1
+ Suspend-Service -Name AdobeARMservice
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : CloseError: (System.ServiceProcess.ServiceController:ServiceController) [Suspend-Service], ServiceCommandException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : CouldNotSuspendService,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.SuspendServiceCommand
PS C:\>
Why we encountered this error.? As mentioned in the error itself; the service should support suspend or resume. How to verify whether the Service supports suspend or resume.? I will explain this in another article.
Lets’ try the Suspend-Service command on the service which supports suspend or resume.
PS C:\> Get-Service | Where-Object Name -EQ stisvc Status Name DisplayName ------ ---- ----------- Paused stisvc Windows Image Acquisition (WIA)
How to resume this service back to running state.? Below section explains this.
Resume the Service: Resume-Service cmdlet
Resume-Service command is used to resume the service, which is currently paused to running state. We need to pass the name of the service through the “-Name” parameter.
Lets’ resume the service; what we have paused through the above command.
PS C:\> Resume-Service -Name stisvc PS C:\> Get-Service | Where-Object Name -EQ stisvc Status Name DisplayName ------ ---- ----------- Running stisvc Windows Image Acquisition (WIA)
That means, “stisvc” is supporting suspend or resume states. Keep that in mind that, when the service is suspended; its’ actions are PAUSED. Its’ actions will only resume once we resume the service.
How to create a new service? : New-Service cmdlet
PowerShell provides a New-Service command to allow the creation of a new service. As I mentioned above, service is a program that runs in the background. In order to create a service, we must specify the name of the service through the parameter “-Name” and the complete path to the program through “-BinaryPathName“.
Lets’ create a service, MyTestService which runs “armsvc.exe” in the background. Note that, this is the same program the service “AdobeARMservice” is referring.
PS C:\> New-Service -Name MyTestService -BinaryPathName "C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\ARM\1.0\armsvc.exe" Status Name DisplayName ------ ---- ----------- Stopped MyTestService MyTestService PS C:\> Start-Service -Name MyTestService PS C:\> Get-Service -Name MyTestService Status Name DisplayName ------ ---- ----------- Running MyTestService MyTestService
From the above sequence of commands, I have created “MyTestService” using the “New-Service“ command; and start run the service using the “Start-Service” command. Finally, I have verified whether the “MyTestService” service is running, using the “Get-Service“ command.
These are the PowerShell cmdlets, useful to manage the services. We will go through more commands, through my upcoming Articles.
(Raju)