How To Stop And Start A Windows Service From The Command Prompt
The Task Manager lets you quit apps and stop and start a Windows service. It’s an easy, graphical way to stop a service if you ever need to but you can also stop and start a Windows service from the command prompt. The process is easy enough though it goes without saying that you need administrative rights to stop or start a service on Windows.
SPOILER ALERT: Scroll down and watch the video tutorial at the end of this article.
Open command prompt by entering Command Prompt in Windows Search. Right-click it and select ‘Run as administrator’ from the context menu. Alternatively, you can open Command Prompt with admin rights from the Run box by typing cmd, and hitting Ctrl+Shift+Enter.
Scan For Running Services
If you’re looking to stop and start a Windows service from the Command Prompt, chances are you may not know what a service is called. The task manager lists them so it’s easier but you can also scan for and list all running Windows services. Enter the following command to list all services that are currently running.
net start
Stop Service
You can stop any one of the services with the following commands. If the service name has spaces, you should enclose it in double quotes.
Syntax
NET STOP service name
Example
NET STOP "Apple Mobile Device Service"
Start Service
You can start a service with the following command. If the service name has spaces, make sure you enclose it in double quotes.
Syntax
NET START service name
Example
NET START "Apple Mobile Device Service"
If you want to stop and start a Windows service from the Command Line in one go, you can combine the above two commands as follows;
Syntax
net stop service name && net start service name
Example
net stop "Apple Mobile Device Service" && net start "Apple Mobile Device Service"
Service Status
The Command Prompt has a built-in tool that can perform other operations on a Windows service. For example, if you need to know whether a service is running or not, you can use this tool to query the status. It’s called sc, and again you need admin rights to use all its commands. You can view a complete list of the commands it supports on the official documentation page maintained by Microsoft. To simply check the status of a service, you can use the following command.
Syntax
sc command service name
Example
sc query “Apple Mobile Device Service”
Be careful which services you choose to stop or start. If you accidentally stop a critical service, your system might crash. Some services may be prone to starting up again automatically once they’re stopped.
