Start / Stop / Enable / Disable Terminal services from command line

We can start Terminal Services by running the command given below.

If the service is already running you will get the message ‘The requested service has already been started.‘
Sometimes you may get an error that the service could not be started.

This happens when Terminal Services is disabled through registry hack. You can fix this by running the below registry change command.

You need to reboot the computer for the changes to take effect. After reboot terminal services starts automatically or you can start the service using net start command as mentioned above.

How to stop Terminal Services?

Terminal Services can’t be stopped like other services. You get the below error when you attempt the same.

How to restart Terminal services?

Since Terminal Services can’t be stopped there is no straightforward way we can do this. Microsoft says this is by design. But in some cases restarting terminal services could be possible by killing the svchost process that runs the terminal services.We can use tasklist and taskkill commands for this.

First get the process id of the terminal services process

Check if Terminal services is the only service running in this svchost. If the svchost is shared with other services then you can stop reading further. Restarting terminal services is not possible on your machine.

On my system I have got the following output.

How to disable Terminal Services?

We can run the below command to disable terminal services.

How to enable Terminal Services?

For your taskkill, command, the switch should be «/PID» not «/PIN»; also, I got an error message saying it can only be terminated forcefully using the /F swtich

Yes, regarding the taskkill command the right syntax is: taskkill /F /PID process_id

Thanks! I appreciate you posting this helpful article

Great post … helped me out in a pinch…

I have an error in Taskkill .

ERROR: The process “process_id” not found.
what is it?

:noogies to head: You need to replace “process_id” with the actual PID. You can find this on the “Services” tab of the Task Manager for the service you are looking for. In this case, you would look for TermService (select the “Name” column title to alphabetize, so it’s easier to find), which for me the PID was 1056, but could (and probably will) vary.

why dont’ you use services.msc to disable Terminal Services?

You can’t, the server won’t allow it.

Hence this procedure.

i can’t run sc config not work
example sc config vnc start= auto
error message sc openservice failed 1060:
how to use

It stops fine on Windows 7. I think the error is only for XP or pre-Win7.

HI!, Thanks. It works perfect, … but..
I want do a bat file to switch on/off RDP. When stop service, there´s another service that stop, and Windows ask if I´m agree. Do you now haw I can force?

I got “System error 5 has occured. Access is denied.” when I enter the command net start termservice. What should I do?

Make sure you are running Command Prompt as administrator…

Start or stop Windows service from command line (CMD)

We normally use Services.msc to start or stop or disable or enable any service. We can do the same from windows command line also using net and sc utilities. Below are commands for controlling the operation of a service.

Command to stop a service:

To start a service:

You need to have administrator privileges to run net start/stop commands. If you are just a normal user on the computer, you would get an error like below.

To disable a service:

To enable a service:

To make a service start automatically with system boot:

Note: Space is mandatory after ‘=’ in the above sc commands.

This SC command works on a Windows 7 machine and also on the down-level editions of Windows i.e Windows XP/2003 and Windows Vista. Again, if you do not have administrator previliges you would get the below error.

Note that the service name is not the display name of a service. Each service is given a unique identification name which can be used with net or sc commands. For example, Remote procedure call (RPC) is the display name of the service. But the service name we need to use in the above commands is RpcSs.
So to start Remote procedure call service the command is:

These service names are listed below for each service. The first column shows the display name of a service and the second column shows the service name that should be used in net start or net stop or sc config commands.

Stop Windows Update service

This post explains how to stop Windows update service from command line(CMD). Make sure that you open elevated administrator command prompt to execute this command.

How to stop Windows update service

Do the following

1. Open elevated command prompt
2. Run the below command.

Update service restarts automatically

It’s observed that just stopping the service does not work in some cases and it restarts automatically. In such cases one can disable the service completely by running below command.

Note that these commands to stop or disable service should be run from elevated administrator command prompt. Other wise you will get the following error.

How to start windows update

Neat tip. However, it seems W7 is automatically restarting the Windows Update service every now and then. I’ve changed status to “Manual” under services.msc but the behavior remains. No fun at all.

Hi Carl
FYI everytime you go into windows update it will start the service even though it is set to manual so if you need to look in windows update then stop the service again afterwards.

Run CMD as Admin and “sc config wuauserv start= disabled” will work on Win7Ulti

Please help me to stop the windows update, it is a disaster every time after windows update, totally stupid program, may be next time I should go for apple.

you gott the error because you have’nt run cmd as administrator

Apple is more stupid than the windows.

I cannot get windows update to stop, finish, or go away! How do I get this to stop so I can get back on the computer? It’s a brand new computer, and useless at this point!

Set to disabled and reboot!

Wow thank you for putting this line up here. I needed to restart my windows update and this did the trick

Yes – agreed thanks much appreciated! On a very slow connection so bandwidth is at a premium. This made things much more pleasant.

#Persistent
interval = 600 ; execution interval in seconds
Menu, Tray, Add ; divider line
Menu, Tray, Add, Execute Now, StopService
Menu, Tray, Default, Execute Now
timer_param := -1000 * interval

StopService:
Run %comspec% /c “sc query wuauserv | find “1 STOPPED” & if errorlevel 1 sc stop wuauserv”, , Hide
time = %A_Now%
time += %interval%, seconds
FormatTime, time_string, %time%, Time
Menu, Tray, Tip, Stop Windows Update Service`nNext Execution at %time_string%
SetTimer, StopService, %timer_param%
return

Hi! even thou i star cmd as admin i still get the “error 5 access denied. can someone help me?

go to start menu —> type “cmd” in the search box, wait till cmd shows in the results list, right click on “cmd” and select “run as administrator”

You need to run it from elevated command prompt.

otherwise, check your UAC and if it’s off, turn it on in your account settings.

This information is for those who wish to completely disable Windows 10 automatic updates. It is very simple and requires no real expertise.

1. Bring up your task manager.
2. Select the “Services” tab.
3. Scroll down the lefthand side until you see “wuauserv”. (In the description column to the right, you’ll see “Windows Update”.)
4. Right click on “wuauserv”.
5. In the dropdown box that appears, click on “stop”.

This stops all automatic updates from taking over your computer. In order to get future updates, you will have to follow the same steps, but click on “start” to restart it. I prefer simply to go to Microsoft’s website to find the updates, if I want them at all, which I don’t. I’ve struggled with Microsoft’s updates for years, from Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, and now Windows 10. All of them have rendered my computer(s) less functional than they were prior to the updates.

I use a separate security program in conjunction with Windows firewall and find that there is absolutely no need to upload their security updates.

hi, I am having endless problems with my surface pro3, running win10pro. the overwhelming majority of my time spent on this device is occupied by trying to update and keep in functioning without sending me endless notifications. I am an aspiring Linux user, which so far as I can tell, is superior in every way, however, I am concerned if the security is dependable…? I was wondering what the security program is that you referenced? and would be eager to hear any other suggestions/tips/opinions?

I tried this and got a message that access is denied.

Same problem on my PC. Svchost.exe takes continuously almost 100% processor time.
Stopped wuauserv in the way described above and the processor is free. However after a restart it is running again. Same after stopping it via the command: net stop wuauserv.
Anybody knows how I can stop this wuauserv forever.

You need to disable the service using sc command. Added these commands in the post.

Hi all, a tip for all of those having issues with Windows update, if you go to services.msc and stop the service in the second tab you can select a user to run the service with afterwards.
So you only need to put a valid user and then change the password of that user and voila! it wont ever be able to run again since it will be trying to run with an invalid user… 🙂

I wind up stopping and disabling this service every day or two, yet somehow Windows keeps turning it back to Automatic and running it! (on an older laptop which has to stay at XP)

Just want to say Thank YOU! I got nearly crazy (even more than normal) because my laptop was making so much noise while windows was checking updates for hours. Tried to close it through task manager to no avail but this tip worked as a charm.
I had no problems at all that was until windows installed updates and I could not get into windows anymore. Thanks no thanks. So now I am going to try to see if I can download the updates one by one or so. Thanks again. Love the sound of silence

Surely it would be much easier to use computer management services scroll down to windows update and apply the above directly with the advantage that you can see what you are actually doing.

Thanks for the tip. CPU had been running crazy trying to keep up with the update service. The CPU temp has dropped from 43 degrees Celcius to 35 degrees.

Omg! Thanks you! I was stuck in windows update hell!

Thanks for the info. I made a .bat file to stop, and one to start with this info. Just run as administrator and it works 🙂

I hope the above stop up dates work as my computer is all bet useless

from cmd run
sc queryex wuauserv
take pidnum from result and replace xxx in
taskkill /PID xxx/F and run

This is a good short term (few days) fix but on Windows 10 home edition, update restarts itself after a few days. There is a regedit out there but it doesn’t work for Home edition. The WUSH tool also only works for a few days.

Would be great if there were a way to program this “sc config wuauserv start= disabled” command to re-run itself every 2 days. Does anyone know how to do this?

Just put the command in a batch file, then schedule a task launching it with highest priviledge “when the computer starts”. (^v^)

i am running cmd as administrator but also the following cmd net stop wuauserv is saying invalid what to do then

Erm… I disabled the command using the command prompt (admin), but the file Windows10Upgrade keeps appearing. Help me please!

I can’t stop windows 10 update using service stopping, when I connect to wifi ,service is auto enable how can I stop permanently

Is there any command just to show the windows update is on or off ?

How can I disable windows updates for all the computers on the network?

Unfortunately, Windows 10 Home does not allow users to turn off automatic updates. To do that, you would have to upgrade to the Pro version. Otherwise, you’re looking at a lot of punishing hours spent rolling back updates you didn’t want… I had this issue with an error related to a registry conflict that prioritizes RuntimeBroker and found that this was the case during my research into the cause for the ongoing rollbacks.

I have no access to stop and disable the services. Can anyone tell me what to do in this case?

Hello, I am searching across the internet to find a solution to fix the svchost.exe disk usage, and almost every one of them suggests to disable or turn manual the Windows Update Service. I already did that, but the svchost.exe thing keeps consuming my disk.

If you know how to fix this, please tell me.

Can always services >Windows update
right click, properties, Revoery, and change to no action for all 3… see if that may help.

Thanks, had to get around an invasive group policy to repair bitlocker bde protectors, this was the trick I needed to disable updates so my bitlocker tables could be repaired.
Brent, New Zealand

Быстрая остановка службы через NET STOP

В командной оболочке команда NET STOP используется для остановки системных служб операционной системы Windows. Быстрая остановка службы через командную строку позволит системным администраторам сэкономить значительное количество времени по сравнению с графическими эквивалентами. Также возможно применение NET STOP в командных сценариях для автоматизации процессов.

Параметры NET STOP

Команда NET STOP останавливает одну из служб Windows. Синтаксис следующий — NET STOP [служба], где [служба] — может быть одной из следующих служб:

• BROWSER — Обозреватель компьютеров;
• DHCP — DHCP-клиент;
• EVENTLOG — Журнал событий;
• MESSENGER — Служба сообщений;
• NETLOGON — Сетевой вход в систему;
• NTLMSSP — Поставщик поддержки безопасности NT LM;
• RASMAN — Диспетчер подключений удаленного доступа;
• REMOTEACCESS — Маршрутизация и удаленный доступ;
• RPCLOCATOR — Локатор удаленного вызова процедур (RPC);
• RPCSS — Удаленный вызов процедур (RPC);
• SCHEDULE — Планировщик заданий;
• SERVER — Сервер;
• SPOOLER — Диспетчер очереди печати;
• LMHOSTS — Поддержка NetBIOS через TCP/IP;
• UPS — Источник бесперебойного питания;
• WORKSTATION — Рабочая станция.

Остановка одной из служб системы Windows может привести к отключению сетевых соединений используемых этой службой. Kроме того, некоторые службы зависят от других служб. Kоманда NET STOP может также использоваться для остановки служб не входящих в состав Windows.

Синтаксис команды довольно простой, нужно лишь ознакомиться с ее параметрами и запомнить имена некоторых служб.

Примеры команды NET STOP

Остановить работу службы «Сервер» можно с помощью следующей команды:

Остановить работу службы «Диспетчер печати» можно командой

Примеры остановки наиболее популярных служб

• net stop dhcp – остановка DHCP- клиента Windows (служба клиента автоматического получения IP-адресов в сети)
• net stop Dnscache — остановка службы DNS-клиента операционной системы
• net stop SharedAccess – остановка брандмауэра Windows(Общий доступ к Интернету ICS)
• net stop Eventlog — остановка службы журнала событий
• net stop Schedule — — остановка службы планировщика заданий Task Scheduler
• net stop MSIServer — остановка службы Windows Installer

С полным списком служб операционной системы Windows и их сокращенными названиями можно ознакомиться в статье – «Перечень служб Windows — полная информация». Net Stop используется вкупе с другими командами net, такими как:

• NET START – запуск службы;
• NET PAUSE – приостановка службы;
• NET CONTINUE – возобновление работы службы.

Видео — Управление службами Windows через командную строку