Windows 10: How to Stop, Start, Enable, Disable, and Restart a Service

Windows 10 has a dedicated program to service management, and that should always be your first point of call. With it, you can quickly perform any of the tasks listed above.

1. Open the Services app

   
   Press “Windows + R” and type “services.msc”. Press “Enter” or “OK”.
   
   

2. Select a service

   
   Double-click a service that you'd like to modify, in our case, ‘Downloaded Maps Manager', or more accurately its service, ‘MapsBroker'.
   
   

3. Stop the service

   
   If the service is currently running, Press “Stop”, then “OK” to end it.
   
   

4. Start the service

   
   To start a service, open the properties window and click “Start”, then “OK”.
   
   

5. Disable a service

   
   To disable a service entirely, open its properties menu and change the “Startup type:” drop-down to “Disabled”. Press “OK”.
   
   

6. Switch windows service to manual start

   
   Rather than disabling a service, you can also define that it will only start with manual input.
   
   

Command prompt is a less user friendly, but often faster way to stop or start a service

1. Open Command Prompt as an admin

   
   Press the Windows key and type “cmd”. Right-click the first result under ‘Best match' and click ‘Run as administrator'.
   
   

2. Stop a service

   
   To stop a service, you must first know its name. You can use either its service name or the display name, like so:

   net stop "MapsBroker"

   
   OR

   net stop "Downloaded Maps Manager"

   
   
   

3. Start a service

   
   You can probably guess the command to start a service. Simply type net start "MapsBroker", or the display name of your service.
   
   

The ‘sc' command gives us a little more control over our services, but requires more specificity.

1. Open an elevated Command Prompt

   
   Press the Windows key and type “Command Prompt”. Right-click the first result under ‘Best match' and choose “Run as administrator”.
   
   

2. Stop a service

   
   To stop a service, you need its full service name. You can likely find this in Task Manager if it's running. Type:

   sc stop "MapsBroker". Replace ‘MapsBroker' with the name or the service you'd like to stop.
   
   
3. Disable a service

   
   As mentioned, the sc command allows for more configuration. You can disable a service rather than stopping it with:
   
   sc config "MapsBroker" start=disabled

   Replace “MapsBroker” with the service you'd like to modify.
   
   

4. Change a service's start type

   
   You can also use sc to change the start type of a service, much like you would with the Services app. There are three possible configurations: manual (demand), automatic (auto), and delayed automatic start (delayed-auto). For example:
   
   sc config "MapsBroker" start=demand

   
   

5. Start a service

   
   Of course, the sc command can also start a service. For example:
   
   sc start "MapsBroker"

   
   

Task Manager is where you're most likely to notice misbehaving services, so it makes sense to address the problem within its interface.

1. Open Task Manager

   
   Press the Windows key and type “Task Manager”. Click the first result under ‘Best match'.
   
   

2. Switch to the Services tab

   
   In Task Manager's top bar, switch from ‘Processes' to the “Services” tab. You can also expand the problematic application in the processes view, right-click its sub-entry, and click “Go To”.
   
   

3. Stop the service

   
   Find the service you'd like to stop, in our case ‘MapsBroker', or ‘Downloaded Maps Manager', right-click it, and press “Stop”.
   
   

4. Start a Service

   
   Find the service that has stopped by clicking the ‘Status' column heading twice or scrolling down the list. Right-click it and select “Start” to enable it.
   
   

5. How to Restart a service

   
   Sometimes a service just isn't behaving properly. In these cases, you can restart the service by selecting it from the list, right-clicking, and choosing “Restart”.
   
   

1. Open PowerShell as an Administrator

   
   Press “Windows + X” and click “Windows PowerShell (Admin)”.
   
   

2. Start a service

   
   Again, you can use either the service name or display to modify a service here. In PowerShell, enter:
   
   Set-Service -Name "MapBroker" -Status Running

   OR
   
   Set-Service -DisplayName "DownloadedMapsManager" -Status Running

   

3. Stop a Service

   
   To stop a service, set the status to stopped instead. Again, you can use the service name or display name:
   
   Set-Service -Name "MapBroker" -Status Stopped

   OR
   
   Set-Service -DisplayName "DownloadedMapsManager" -Status Stopped

   

4. Disable a Service

   
   The command to restart a service is slightly different, but can also use the display or service name:
   
   Restart-Service -Force "MapsBroker"

   OR
   
   Restart-Service -Force "DowloadedMapsManager".

   

5. How to disable a service

   
   You can disable a service via its display name or service name via the following command:
   
   Set-Service -Name "MapsBroker" -StartupType Disabled -Status Stopped

   OR
   
   Set-Service -DisplayName "DowloadedMapsManager" -StartupType Disabled -Status Stopped

   Naturally, you should switch the maps service with whichever one you wish to disable.
   
   

6. How to enable a service

   
   If you made a mistake, you can enable a service again with:
   
   Set-Service -Name "MapBroker" -StartupType Automatic

   OR if you'd like to use the display name:
   
   Set-Service -Name "DowloadedMapsManager" -StartupType Automatic

   You can replace the maps service with one of your choice. Also bear in mind that you can enable a service as a manual startup by replacing -StartupType Automatic with -StartupType Manual.