Controlling Windows Services

WMI represents Windows services as instances of Win32_Service class. You can add this class to device assets, or use WQL requests to fetch information and control services on remote Windows computers. Some examples are presented below.

To obtain names of inactive services and their states, you can use the following WQL request:

SELECT DisplayName,State FROM Win32_Service WHERE State <> 'Running'

To invoke it, do the following:

• Select a device in Context Tree
• Right-click it and select Edit Device Properties item
• Add new record in the table on the WQL Requests tab; enter the name, description and query text (as provided above) in corresponding fields
• Press OK

The device will automatically synchronize and execute the request. The result will be available in WQL Requests table of Device Configuration.

Use the following request to fetch only stoppable services:

SELECT * FROM Win32_Service WHERE AcceptStop = True

Follow the same procedure as provided above to employ it.

To start a service on a specific computer, you can do the following:

• Select the corresponding device in Context Tree
• Right-click it and select the Win32_Service item in context menu (for Network Host devices it is located in the WMI submenu)
• Select the StartService method there
• Select or enter Object Path that identifies the service you would like to start
• Press OK

To stop a service, perform this procedure for the StopService method.

There are other classes that provide more information about Windows services. Refer to WMI documentation for further details.

For example, instances of the Win32_LoadOrderGroup class represent groups of services that define execution dependencies. You can add this class to device assets or use WQL:

SELECT * FROM Win32_LoadOrderGroup

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