How to test whether a service is running from the command line

Question

I would like to be able to query whether or not a service is running from a windows batch file  I know I can use        sc query  ServiceName      but  this dumps out some text  What I really want is for it to set the errorlevel environment variable so that I can take action on that   Do you know a simple way I can do this   UPDATE Thanks for the answers so far  I m worried the solutions that parse the text may not work on non English operating systems  Does anybody know a way around this  or am I going to have to bite the bullet and write a console program to get this right

User · Answer

Just to add on to the list if you are using Powershell.

sc.exe query "ServiceName" | findstr RUNNING

The command below does not work because sc is an alias to Set-Content within Powershell.

sc query "ServiceName" | findstr RUNNING

find also does not work on Powershell for some reason unknown to me.

sc.exe query "ServiceName" | find RUNNING

User · Answer

I would suggest  WMIC Service WHERE  Name    SericeName   GET Started  or WMIC Service WHERE  Name    ServiceName   GET ProcessId  ProcessId will be zero if service isn t started   You can set the error level based on whether the former returns  TRUE  or the latter returns nonzero

User · Answer

if you don t mind to combine the net command with grep you can use the following script    echo off net start   grep -x  Service  if  ERRORLEVEL     2 goto trouble if  ERRORLEVEL     1 goto stopped if  ERRORLEVEL     0 goto started echo unknown status goto end  trouble echo trouble goto end  started echo started goto end  stopped echo stopped goto end  end

User · Answer

sc query  ServiceName    find  RUNNING

User · Answer

if you don t mind to combine the net command with grep you can use the following script    echo off net start   grep -x  Service  if  ERRORLEVEL     2 goto trouble if  ERRORLEVEL     1 goto stopped if  ERRORLEVEL     0 goto started echo unknown status goto end  trouble echo trouble goto end  started echo started goto end  stopped echo stopped goto end  end

User · Answer

sc query  servicename    findstr STATE  for example   sc query  wuauserv    findstr STATE  To report what the Windows update service is doing  running paused etc This is also for Windows 10  Thank me later

User · Answer

SERVICO BAT  echo off echo Servico   1 if   1      goto erro sc query  1   findstr RUNNING if  ERRORLEVEL     2 goto trouble if  ERRORLEVEL     1 goto stopped if  ERRORLEVEL     0 goto started echo unknown status goto end  trouble echo trouble goto end  started echo started goto end  stopped echo stopped goto end  erro echo sintaxe  servico NOMESERVICO goto end   end

User · Answer

Try   sc query state  all    for a list of services and whether they are running or not

User · Answer

sc query  ServiceName    find  RUNNING

User · Answer

Let s go back to the old school of batch programing on windows  net start   find  Service Name    This will work everywhere

User · Answer

ECHO OFF REM testing at cmd   sc query  MSSQLSERVER    findstr RUNNING REM  MSSQLSERVER  is the name of Service for sample sc query  MSSQLSERVER   1   findstr RUNNING if  ERRORLEVEL     2 goto trouble if  ERRORLEVEL     1 goto stopped if  ERRORLEVEL     0 goto started echo unknown status goto end  trouble echo Oh noooo   trouble mas bro goto end  started echo  SQL Server  MSSQLSERVER   is started goto end  stopped echo  SQL Server  MSSQLSERVER   is stopped echo Starting service net start  MSSQLSERVER  goto end  erro echo Error please check your command   mas bro  goto end   end

User · Answer

Try   sc query state  all    for a list of services and whether they are running or not

User · Answer

Thinking a little bit outside the box here I m going to propose that powershell may be an answer on up-to-date XP 2003 machines and certainly on Vista 2008 and newer  instead of  bat  cmd    Anyone who has some Perl in their background should feel at-home pretty quickly     serviceName    ServiceName    serviceStatus    get-service   serviceName   Status   if   serviceStatus -eq  Running         echo  Service is Running     else        Could be Stopped  Stopping  Paused  or even Starting        echo  Service is  serviceStatus       Another way  if you have significant investment in batch is to run the PS script as a one-liner  returning an exit code     ECHO off SET PS powershell -nologo -command  PS      if  get-service SvcName  Status -eq  Running   exit 1     ECHO  ERRORLEVEL    Running as a one-liner also gets around the default PS code signing policy at the expense of messiness   To put the PS commands in a  ps1 file and run like powershell myCode ps1 you may find signing your powershell scripts is neccessary to run them in an automated way  depends on your environment   See http   www hanselman com blog SigningPowerShellScripts aspx for details

User · Answer

Thinking a little bit outside the box here I m going to propose that powershell may be an answer on up-to-date XP 2003 machines and certainly on Vista 2008 and newer  instead of  bat  cmd    Anyone who has some Perl in their background should feel at-home pretty quickly     serviceName    ServiceName    serviceStatus    get-service   serviceName   Status   if   serviceStatus -eq  Running         echo  Service is Running     else        Could be Stopped  Stopping  Paused  or even Starting        echo  Service is  serviceStatus       Another way  if you have significant investment in batch is to run the PS script as a one-liner  returning an exit code     ECHO off SET PS powershell -nologo -command  PS      if  get-service SvcName  Status -eq  Running   exit 1     ECHO  ERRORLEVEL    Running as a one-liner also gets around the default PS code signing policy at the expense of messiness   To put the PS commands in a  ps1 file and run like powershell myCode ps1 you may find signing your powershell scripts is neccessary to run them in an automated way  depends on your environment   See http   www hanselman com blog SigningPowerShellScripts aspx for details

User · Answer

SERVICO BAT  echo off echo Servico   1 if   1      goto erro sc query  1   findstr RUNNING if  ERRORLEVEL     2 goto trouble if  ERRORLEVEL     1 goto stopped if  ERRORLEVEL     0 goto started echo unknown status goto end  trouble echo trouble goto end  started echo started goto end  stopped echo stopped goto end  erro echo sintaxe  servico NOMESERVICO goto end   end

User · Answer

You could use wmic with the  locale option  call wmic  locale ms 409 service where  name  wsearch   get state  value   findstr State Running if  ErrorLevel  EQU 0       echo Running   else       echo Not running

User · Answer

sc query  ServiceName    find  RUNNING

User · Answer

You could use wmic with the  locale option  call wmic  locale ms 409 service where  name  wsearch   get state  value   findstr State Running if  ErrorLevel  EQU 0       echo Running   else       echo Not running

User · Answer

if you don t mind to combine the net command with grep you can use the following script    echo off net start   grep -x  Service  if  ERRORLEVEL     2 goto trouble if  ERRORLEVEL     1 goto stopped if  ERRORLEVEL     0 goto started echo unknown status goto end  trouble echo trouble goto end  started echo started goto end  stopped echo stopped goto end  end

User · Answer

I noticed no one mentioned the use of regular expressions when using find findstr-based Answers  That can be problematic for similarly named services   Lets say you have two services  CDPUserSvc and CDPUserSvc 54530  If you use most of the find findstr-based Answers here so far  you ll get false-positives for CDPUserSvc queries when only CDPUserSvc 54530 is running   The  r and  c switches for findstr can help us handle that use-case  as well as the special character that indicates the end of the line     This query will only verify the running of the CDPUserSvc service and ignore CDPUserSvc 54530  sc query findstr  r  c  CDPUserSvc

User · Answer

I ve found this     sc query  ServiceName    findstr RUNNING     seems to do roughly the right thing  But  I m worried that s not generalized enough to work on non-english operating systems

User · Answer

Try   sc query state  all    for a list of services and whether they are running or not

User · Answer

sc query  servicename    findstr STATE  for example   sc query  wuauserv    findstr STATE  To report what the Windows update service is doing  running paused etc This is also for Windows 10  Thank me later

User · Answer

Let s go back to the old school of batch programing on windows  net start   find  Service Name    This will work everywhere

User · Answer

sc query  ServiceName    find  RUNNING

User · Answer

ECHO OFF REM testing at cmd   sc query  MSSQLSERVER    findstr RUNNING REM  MSSQLSERVER  is the name of Service for sample sc query  MSSQLSERVER   1   findstr RUNNING if  ERRORLEVEL     2 goto trouble if  ERRORLEVEL     1 goto stopped if  ERRORLEVEL     0 goto started echo unknown status goto end  trouble echo Oh noooo   trouble mas bro goto end  started echo  SQL Server  MSSQLSERVER   is started goto end  stopped echo  SQL Server  MSSQLSERVER   is stopped echo Starting service net start  MSSQLSERVER  goto end  erro echo Error please check your command   mas bro  goto end   end

User · Answer

Use Cygwin Bash with   sc query  SomeService   grep -qo RUNNING  amp  amp  echo  SomeService is running      echo  SomeService is not running      Make sure you have sc exe in your PATH

User · Answer

You could use wmic with the  locale option  call wmic  locale ms 409 service where  name  wsearch   get state  value   findstr State Running if  ErrorLevel  EQU 0       echo Running   else       echo Not running

User · Answer

You could use wmic with the  locale option  call wmic  locale ms 409 service where  name  wsearch   get state  value   findstr State Running if  ErrorLevel  EQU 0       echo Running   else       echo Not running

User · Answer

Just to add on to the list if you are using Powershell.

sc.exe query "ServiceName" | findstr RUNNING

The command below does not work because sc is an alias to Set-Content within Powershell.

sc query "ServiceName" | findstr RUNNING

find also does not work on Powershell for some reason unknown to me.

sc.exe query "ServiceName" | find RUNNING

User · Answer

I noticed no one mentioned the use of regular expressions when using find findstr-based Answers  That can be problematic for similarly named services   Lets say you have two services  CDPUserSvc and CDPUserSvc 54530  If you use most of the find findstr-based Answers here so far  you ll get false-positives for CDPUserSvc queries when only CDPUserSvc 54530 is running   The  r and  c switches for findstr can help us handle that use-case  as well as the special character that indicates the end of the line     This query will only verify the running of the CDPUserSvc service and ignore CDPUserSvc 54530  sc query findstr  r  c  CDPUserSvc

User · Answer

Use Cygwin Bash with   sc query  SomeService   grep -qo RUNNING  amp  amp  echo  SomeService is running      echo  SomeService is not running      Make sure you have sc exe in your PATH

User · Answer

Try   sc query state  all    for a list of services and whether they are running or not

User · Answer

I would suggest  WMIC Service WHERE  Name    SericeName   GET Started  or WMIC Service WHERE  Name    ServiceName   GET ProcessId  ProcessId will be zero if service isn t started   You can set the error level based on whether the former returns  TRUE  or the latter returns nonzero

User · Answer

I ve found this     sc query  ServiceName    findstr RUNNING     seems to do roughly the right thing  But  I m worried that s not generalized enough to work on non-english operating systems

User · Answer

I ve found this     sc query  ServiceName    findstr RUNNING     seems to do roughly the right thing  But  I m worried that s not generalized enough to work on non-english operating systems

User · Answer

I ve found this     sc query  ServiceName    findstr RUNNING     seems to do roughly the right thing  But  I m worried that s not generalized enough to work on non-english operating systems

User · Answer

if you don t mind to combine the net command with grep you can use the following script    echo off net start   grep -x  Service  if  ERRORLEVEL     2 goto trouble if  ERRORLEVEL     1 goto stopped if  ERRORLEVEL     0 goto started echo unknown status goto end  trouble echo trouble goto end  started echo started goto end  stopped echo stopped goto end  end

[windows] How to test whether a service is running from the command line

Examples related to windows

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