SC Command to Handle Services in Windows
Many Times during packaging or troubleshooting we need to work on services. So there is an executable present in windows\system32\sc.exe which can be very useful for this purpose. Below is some information and command lines on this.
Service Control - Create, Start, Stop, Query or Delete any Windows SERVICE. The command options for SC are case sensitive.
Syntax
SC [\\server] [command] [service_name] [Options]
commands:
| query [qryOpt] | Show status |
| queryEx [qryOpt] | Show extended info - pid, flags |
| GetDisplayName | Show the DisplayName |
| GetKeyName | Show the ServiceKeyName |
| EnumDepend | Show Dependencies |
| qc | Show config - dependencies, full path etc |
| start | START a service. |
| stop | STOP a service |
| pause | PAUSE a service. |
| continue | CONTINUE a service. |
| create | Create a service. (add it to the registry) |
| config | permanently change the service configuration |
| delete | Delete a service (from the registry) |
| control | Send a control to a service |
| interrogate | Send an INTERROGATE control request to a service |
| Qdescription | Query the description of a service |
| description | Change the description of a service |
| Qfailure | Query the actions taken by a service upon failure |
| failure | Change the actions taken by a service upon failure |
| sdShow | Display a service's security descriptor using SDDL |
| SdSet | Sets a service's security descriptor using SDDL |
qryOpt:
| type= driver|service|all | Query specific types of service |
| state= active|inactive|all | Query services in a |
Misc commands that don't require a service name:
| SC QueryLock | Query the LockStatus for the ServiceManager Database.
This will show if a service request is running |
| SC Lock | Lock the Service Database |
| SC BOOT | Values are {ok | bad}
Indicates whether to save the last restart configuration as the `last-known-good` restart configuration |
Options
The CREATE and CONFIG commands allow additional options to be set.
The SC command duplicates some aspects of the NET command but adds the ability to create a service.
SC query will display if a service is running, giving output like this:
SERVICE_NAME : messenger
TYPE : 20 WIN32_SHARE_PROCESS
STATE : 4 RUNNING
(STOPPABLE,NOT_PAUSABLE,ACCEPTS_SHUTDOWN)
WIN32_EXIT_CODE : 0 (0x0)
SERVICE_EXIT_CODE : 0 (0x0)
CHECKPOINT : 0x0
WAIT_HINT : 0x0To retrieve specific information from SC's output, pipe into FIND or FindStr e.g.
SC query messenger | FIND "STATE"
SC QUERY state= all |FINDSTR "DISPLAY_NAME STATE"
In the statement above the FIND command will set the ERRORLEVEL as follows
ERRORLEVEL 0 = Running
ERRORLEVEL 1 = Stopped or Paused
The NET START command can be used in a similar way to check if a service is running:
NET START | FIND "Service name" > nul
IF errorlevel 1 GOTO :s_not_running the service control manager will normally wait up to 30 seconds to allow a service to start - you can modify this time (30,000 milliseconds) in the registry
HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control
ServicesPipeTimeout (REG_DWORD)
Some options only take effect at the point when the service is started e.g. the SC config command allows the executable of a service to be changed. When the service next starts up it will run the new executable. Config changes requires the current user to have "permission to configure the service".
Examples:
- SC GetKeyName "task scheduler"
- SC GetDisplayName schedule
- SC start schedule
- SC QUERY schedule
- SC QUERY type= driver
- SC QUERY state= all |findstr "DISPLAY_NAME STATE" >svc_installed.txt
- SC \\myServer CONFIG myService obj= LocalSystem password= mypassword
- SC CONFIG MyService binPath=c:\myprogram.exe obj=".\LocalSystem" password=""
Cheers
Deepanshu