FAQ: Q22

Link: http://www.ilopia.com/FAQ/FAQ.aspx?id=22

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I have enabled and started a service, for example the Windows Audio Service (WAS) and want to stop it now. But the option to stop it is grayed out.

If you try to stop it from a command prompt you will get this error message: "The requested pause, continue, or stop is not valid for this service".

Unfortunately you have to change the startup mode to manual or disabled, and reboot. If you in the future have the same problem with services that you cannot stop, you can use the new command-line tool called sc.exe. Services can mark themselves as unstoppable via SERIVCE_ACCEPT_* flags. In this case, the AudioSrv service doesn't pass in the SERVICE_ACCEPT_STOP flag, so the Service Controller will reject requests to stop it. In the case with AudioSrv we could have written sc query audiosrv in a command prompt and we would have seen that the Audio Service cannot be stopped.