Windows 7 / Getting Started

Managing Services Using the Sc.exe Command

You can use the Sc.exe command to start, stop, configure, and manage various aspects of services in the same way that you can on earlier versions of Windows. The Sc.exe command provides administrators with far more flexibility in configuring services than the Services snap-in or Group Policy.

The Sc.exe command was previously enhanced in Windows Vista with additional command-line switches, including the following:

  • New switches for specifying required privileges for a service, including:
    • privs Sets the required privileges for a service
    • qprivs Queries for the required privileges of a service
  • New switches that support per-service SIDs, including:
    • sidtype Changes a service's SID
    • qsidtype Retrieves the setting for a service's SID
  • New switches to enable configuration of the FailureActionsOnNonCrashFailures setting, including:
    • failureflag Changes the setting of the FailureActionsOnNonCrashFailures flag
    • qfailureflag Retrieves the setting for the FailureActionsOnNonCrashFailures flag
    • showsid Displays the service SID string corresponding to an arbitrary name
    • stop This is an old setting that was enhanced in Windows Vista to specify the stop reason. This setting enables postmortem reliability analysis to find an administrator's reasons (by examining the event logged by SCM with the stop reason) for stopping a service.

New in Windows 7 are command options for Sc.exe that allow configuring and querying a service for supported triggers. For information about how to use these new command options, see the sidebar titled "Direct from the Source: Sc.exe Command Support for Service Triggers" later in this tutorial.

For more information about the command-line switches for Sc.exe, type sc /? at a command prompt.

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In this tutorial:

  1. Managing Devices and Services
  2. Understanding Device Installation and Management
  3. Device Enhancements in Windows 7
  4. Display Enhancements in Windows 7
  5. Understanding Device Installation
  6. Driver Store and Driver Packaging
  7. Driver Staging vs Installation
  8. Driver Staging and Installation Process
  9. Detailed Installation Process
  10. Managing Driver Packages
  11. Using PnPutil.exe
  12. Using Dism.exe
  13. Driver Signing
  14. Driver Ranking
  15. Installing and Using Devices
  16. Enhancements to the Device Installation Experience in Windows 7
  17. Scenario 1: Driver found in Driver Store
  18. Scenario 2: Driver found on Windows Update
  19. Scenario 3: Driver in Driver Store, But Better Driver on Windows Update
  20. Scenario 5: No Driver Can Be Found for the device
  21. Scenario 6: Vendor -supplied media is available
  22. Scenario 7: Additional Device Software is Available For Download from vendor
  23. Configuring Device Installation Settings
  24. Using the Devices And Printers Folder
  25. Understanding Device Stage
  26. Understanding the Device Experience Architecture
  27. Device Containers
  28. Device display object
  29. Device Metadata System
  30. Managing Device Installation Using Group Policy
  31. Managing Device Installation Behavior
  32. Managing Driver Installation Behavior
  33. Blocking Installation of Removable Devices
  34. Managing Device Redirection Behavior
  35. Troubleshooting Device Installation
  36. Using Windows Error Reporting
  37. Using the SetupAPI Log File
  38. Using Driver INF Files
  39. Using Device Manager Error Codes
  40. Using Driver Verifier
  41. Repairing Driver Store Corruption
  42. Repairing Index File Corruption
  43. Understanding Power Management
  44. Power Management Enhancements in Windows 7
  45. New Power Policies in Windows 7
  46. Configuring Power Management Settings
  47. Configuring Power Management Settings Using the Power Options Utility in Control Panel
  48. Configuring Power Management Settings Using Group Policy
  49. Configuring Power Management Settings Using the Powercfg Utility
  50. Understanding Services
  51. Service Enhancements in Windows 7
  52. Managing Services
  53. Managing Services Using Task Manager
  54. Managing Services Using the Sc.exe Command