How do I prevent a Windows service from setting its own startup type to automatic?

Question

I have a self-starting service, but I want to start it manually instead. However, as long as the service is running, it continues to monitor its startup type status, and as soon as I change it to manual startup, it automatically changes back to auto startup.

Of course, I could stop the service and then change the start type, but when I need the service to run again, it will change itself to start automatically.

Is there any way to prevent the service from changing itself to auto-start?

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 26 '23 at 10:22

1

Run the service under an account that has no privilege to change services.

answered Jun 26 '23 at 10:22

Zac67

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And hope the service handles that well. – TomTom Jun 26 '23 at 12:52
@TomTom Of course - as we have no information about that service we can't really help with that. – Zac67 Jun 26 '23 at 13:43
I noticed that the auto-start options of some services are gray and do not allow modification, such as Scheduler. Can this be done by setting some registry key? – 埃博拉酱 Jul 05 '23 at 08:40
@埃博拉酱 Yes, mostly - but you should definitely know what you're doing in that depth. – Zac67 Jul 05 '23 at 09:45
@Zac67 So do you know which registry is to be set? – 埃博拉酱 Jul 06 '23 at 11:32
@埃博拉酱 Well, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Schedule\Start would be for the task scheduler. – Zac67 Jul 06 '23 at 12:17
@Zac67 No, this is the auto-start option, not the option to (dis)allow the auto-start option to be modified in the service center. – 埃博拉酱 Jul 07 '23 at 00:42

How do I prevent a Windows service from setting its own startup type to automatic?

1 Answers1