Service Control - Windows Service

What is Service Control?

The SC command duplicates some aspects of the NET command but adds the ability to create a service.

You can use Service Control(SC.exe) to Create, Start, Stop, Query or Delete any Windows SERVICE. The command options for SC are case sensitive.

Syntax: SC [\\server] [command] [service_name] [Options]

Key's:

1. server: The machine where the service is running
2. service_name: The KeyName of the service, this is often but not always the same as the DisplayName shown in Control Panel, Services.
3. You can get the KeyName by running: SC GetKeyName <DisplayName>

Commands:

1. query  [qryOpt] - Show status
2. queryEx [qryOpt] - Show extended info - pid, flags
3. GetDisplayName - Show the DisplayName
4. GetKeyName - Show the ServiceKeyName
5. EnumDepend - Show Dependencies
6. qc - Show config-dependencies, full path etc
7. start - START a service.
8. stop - STOP a service
9. pause - PAUSE a service.
10. continue - CONTINUE a service.
11. create - Create a service. (add it to the registry)
12. config - permanently change the service configuration
13. delete - Delete a service (from the registry)
14. control - Send a control to a service
15. interrogate - Send an INTERROGATE control request to a service
16. Qdescription - Query the description of a service
17. description - Change the description of a service
18. Qfailure - Query the actions taken by a service upon failure
19. failure - Change the actions taken by a service upon failure
20. sdShow - Display a service's security descriptor using SDDL
21. SdSet - Sets a service's security descriptor using SDDL

qryOpt Command:

1. type= driver|service|all - Query specific types of service
2. state= active|inactive|all - Query services in a particular state only
3. bufsize= bytes
4. ri= resume_index_number (default=0)
5. group= groupname - Query services in a particular group

Misc commands that don't require a service name:

1. SC  QueryLock - Query the LockStatus for the ServiceManager Database, this will show if a service request is running
2. SC  Lock - Lock the Service Database
3. 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, see the build-in help: 'SC create' and 'SC config'.

Note: The qryOpt options above are case sensitive - they must be entered in lower case, also the position of spaces and = must be written exactly as shown.

Ex: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: 0x0

To retrieve specific information from SC's output, pipe into FIND or FindStr:

1. C:\> SC query messenger | FIND "STATE" | FIND "STOPPED"
2. C:\> SC query messenger | FIND "STATE" | FIND "RUNNING"

The statements above will return an %ERRORLEVEL% = 1 if the text is not found

IF errorlevel 1 GOTO: my_subroutine

NET START command can be used in a similar way to check if a service is running:

1. NET START | FIND "Service name" > nul
2. IF errorlevel 1 ECHO The service is 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: 

1. HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control
2. ServicesPipeTimeout (REG_DWORD)

Some options only take effect at the point when the service is started.
Ex: 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:

1. SC GetKeyName "task scheduler"
2. SC GetDisplayName schedule
3. SC start schedule
4. SC QUERY schedule
5. SC QUERY type= driver
6. SC QUERY state= all |findstr "DISPLAY_NAME STATE" >svc_installed.txt
7. SC \\myServer CONFIG myService obj= LocalSystem password= mypassword
8. SC CONFIG MyService binPath=c:\myprogram.exe obj=".\LocalSystem" password="" 

Imp:Watch out for extra spaces:
SC QUERY state= all Works

SC QUERY sTate =all Fails!