Difference between sc start ... and Start-Service ... in PowerShell 2

Question

I have a few different services installed on the same machine. I'm writing a PowerShell 2 script to start and stop them.

For some of the services, I can use Start-Service -displayname "the service" to successfully start it. On others, using the Start-Service cmdlet causes and error along the lines of "Cannot start service ... on computer '.'".

In the cases that I get an error using the Start-Service cmdlet, sc start "the service" always succeeds.

Vice versa is also true (although sc start doesn't return any errors--it just doesn't start the service at all.)

Is there any difference between these commands? Is there an alternative command I should be using? Finally, can I 'catch' any errors from the cmdlet and just include both commands to cover all the bases?

This problem is repeatable for me, even if I uninstall and reinstall the service.

Thanks!

score 5 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 09 '12 at 08:51

I'm not sure the differences between sc start and start-service, but you can use wmi to do what you want.

To start the service:

(get-wmiobject win32_service -filter "name='the service'").startService()

To stop the service:

(get-wmiobject win32_service -filter "name='the service'").stopService()

To check the status of a service, you can use:

get-wmiobject win32_service -filter "name='the service'"

It will show you the state and also the start mode. If you want to automate this, you can use the following.

To stop the service:

if ((get-wmiobject win32_service -filter "name='the service'").state -eq "Running") {
    (get-wmiobject win32_service -filter "name='the service'").stopService()
} # Stops the service if it is running

To start the service:

if ((get-wmiobject win32_service -filter "name='the service'").state -eq "Stopped") {
    (get-wmiobject win32_service -filter "name='the service'").startService()
} # starts the service if it is stopped

I'm sure you can modify those to suit your needs.

The reason I like to use wmi is the ability to specify -computername and -credentials. It makes it so you can access a remote system and authenticate to it if you have non-domain systems. Hope that helped. Have a great day!

sonjz · Answer 2 · 2014-10-20T17:01:27.440

In powershell sc is Set-Content. see with help sc, its not he same as when you run sc in cmd.exe.

You probably want to look at Start-Service, Restart-Service, Stop-Service. Use Get-Command to help you find the commandlet you'll need:

PS C:\> Get-Command | findstr Service
Cmdlet   Get-Service           Microsoft.PowerShell.Management
Cmdlet   New-Service           Microsoft.PowerShell.Management
Cmdlet   New-WebServiceProxy   Microsoft.PowerShell.Management
Cmdlet   Restart-Service       Microsoft.PowerShell.Management
Cmdlet   Resume-Service        Microsoft.PowerShell.Management
Cmdlet   Set-Service           Microsoft.PowerShell.Management
Cmdlet   Start-Service         Microsoft.PowerShell.Management
Cmdlet   Stop-Service          Microsoft.PowerShell.Management
Cmdlet   Suspend-Service       Microsoft.PowerShell.Management

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 09 '12 at 20:02

1

This could be related to the reason why sc start wasn't working in some cases: http://www.windowsitpro.com/article/powershell-faqs/q-do-normal-windows-commands-run-in-powershell

Perhaps I needed to call it like this: & "sc start 'the service'"

answered Sep 09 '12 at 20:02

Brett

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`PS> cmd --% /c sc query wsearch` --% = bypass the parser and just append it to whatever cmd resolves to, cmd /c is Run command and exit – evilSnobu Oct 19 '14 at 10:22

Difference between sc start ... and Start-Service ... in PowerShell 2

3 Answers3