CODEWITHSUNDEEP
windowspowershellprintingscheduled-tasks
user3332631
user3332631

Reputation: 394

Scheduled task restart service with dependent services

I have a Windows 2008 R2 server that acts as a Print Server.

Almost all of the problems that occur on this server is fixed by restarting the Print Spooler service.

I came up with a plan to restart the service automaticly every night, and i found this command:

Powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command { Restart-Service -Name spooler }

The problem is that my spooler has three services that depend on it, so this command will not work. Is it safe to add a -force command after "spooler" or is there any other way to do it?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 8021

Answers (3)

JBat
JBat

Reputation: 21

I think we can combine tips from other answers above, (powershell 5.1) 

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "Restart-Service -Name spooler -Force -include (get-service spooler).dependentservices"

and you can check dependent services status, before and after 

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "(get-service spooler).dependentservices"

Upvotes: 0

idrositis
idrositis

Reputation: 1376

To restart a service with dependencies, in the latest versions of PowerShell (v5 onwards), you only need to include the -Force flag.

As in the example below with/out the flag:

PS C:\Temp> Restart-Service -Name "nlasvc"
Restart-Service : Cannot stop service 'Network Location Awareness (nlasvc)' because it has dependent services.
It can only be stopped if the Force flag is set.
At line:1 char:1
+ Restart-Service -Name "nlasvc"
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo          : InvalidOperation: (System.ServiceProcess.ServiceController:ServiceController) [Restart-Service], ServiceCommandException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : ServiceHasDependentServices,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.RestartServiceCommand

PS C:\Temp> Restart-Service -Name "nlasvc" -Force
PS C:\Temp>

And as per the PowerShell references for Stop-Service and Restart-Service.

Upvotes: 1

vonPryz
vonPryz

Reputation: 24071

Restarting a service with dependencies nicely requires that dependent services are stopped first. There's a Dell KB article with sample code. In case of link rot, a bit tuned version is like so,

# Service to be restarted
$restartedService = "FooBar"

# Get service dependencies
$dependents = (get-service $restartedService).dependentservices  

# information about dependent services
$dependentservices = gwmi Win32_Service | Select-object name,state,startmode | ? {$dependents.name -contains $_.name}

# Stop dependencies
Write-Host "Stopping Services" -f Yellow

foreach ($service in $dependentservices){

Write-Host "`r`nAnalyzing $($service.name)" -f Yellow

    if($service.startmode -eq "auto" -or $service.status -eq "Running"){
        Write-Host "Stopping $($service.name)"
        stop-service $service.name
    } else{
        "$($service.name) is $($service.state) with the startmode: $($service.startmode)"
    }
}

# Stop the service
stop-service $restartedService -force

Write-Host "Starting Services" -f Yellow

# start dependencies
foreach ($service in $dependentservices){

    Write-Host "`r`nAnalyzing $($service.name)" -f Yellow

    if($service.startmode -eq "auto"){
        "Starting $($service.name)"
        start-service $service.name
    } else{
        "$($service.name) is $($service.state) with the startmode: $($service.startmode)"
    }
}

# start service
start-service $restartedService

Upvotes: 3

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