Windows – What’s the difference between Start-Service and Set-Service -Status Running

powershellservicewindowswindows-server-2012-r2

I was changing a service from a disabled state to a running state with the startup type as automatic on a bunch of servers, and I was poking around online on how to do it remotely, and using Set-Service for the startup type worked remotely, but for some reason doing a Get-Service | Start-Service gave me an error. I found a site that said you needed to do a Set-Service -Status Running, and that worked, but does that actually start the service? Is there a difference between doing it that way and doing a Start-Service locally?

Here's my final command, because the site also gave me an idea of how to do a 1-liner:

Get-Service -ComputerName SERVER -Name "SERVICE*" | Set-Service -StartupType Automatic -PassThru | Set-Service -Status Running

I like that, but it seemed that services that take a couple seconds to start up with a Start-Service command are immediately set to running with the Set-Service command, meaning that maybe it's not actually starting the service.

I'm sure it's ok, but I'm paranoid and want to make sure.

Best Answer

The Start-Service cmdlet cannot be run against remote computers, so with your scenario, using Set-Service -Status Running is the only way to do accomplish your task. Yes, it is actually starting the services.

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getmac

It shows the MAC address(es) of your network adapter(s).

Screenshot of running getmac from a Windows commandline window.

Windows service trigger start – difference manual vs automatic

Automatic services start when the OS boots. Manual services do not. Triggers can be added to services to make them start on some event, such as an ETW event, or a USB device being plugged in, etc. Triggers can be added to either Manual or Automatic services.

An example of the trigger(s) on an Automatic (Trigger Start) service:

C:\Users\Ryan>sc qtriggerinfo dnscache
[SC] QueryServiceConfig2 SUCCESS

SERVICE_NAME: dnscache

        START SERVICE
          FIREWALL PORT EVENT          : b7569e07-8421-4ee0-ad10-86915afdad09 [PORT OPEN]
            DATA                       : 5355;UDP;

An example of the trigger(s) on a Manual (Trigger Start) service:

C:\Users\Ryan>sc qtriggerinfo appinfo
[SC] QueryServiceConfig2 SUCCESS

SERVICE_NAME: appinfo

        START SERVICE
          NETWORK EVENT                : bc90d167-9470-4139-a9ba-be0bbbf5b74d [RPC INTERFACE EVENT]
            DATA                       : 201ef99a-7fa0-444c-9399-19ba84f12a1a
        START SERVICE
          NETWORK EVENT                : bc90d167-9470-4139-a9ba-be0bbbf5b74d [RPC INTERFACE EVENT]
            DATA                       : 5f54ce7d-5b79-4175-8584-cb65313a0e98
        START SERVICE
          NETWORK EVENT                : bc90d167-9470-4139-a9ba-be0bbbf5b74d [RPC INTERFACE EVENT]
            DATA                       : fd7a0523-dc70-43dd-9b2e-9c5ed48225b1
        START SERVICE
          NETWORK EVENT                : bc90d167-9470-4139-a9ba-be0bbbf5b74d [RPC INTERFACE EVENT]
            DATA                       : 58e604e8-9adb-4d2e-a464-3b0683fb1480

A service can be set to Automatic, so that it starts as soon as the OS loads, but it can also stop gracefully on its own when the service has no more work to do. After it has stopped, a trigger can start it again at any time.

So to recap, both Automatic and Manual services can have triggers that manually start them. The only difference is that Automatic services start as soon as the operating system loads.

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