Killing services in XP

Hi all,

Where I work, we have a PACS (Picture Archive and Control System) for dealing with digital X-Rays. This runs a service on workstations to receive images before they are required. This service is hanging on 2 of out workstations, this is a known issue with the PACS provider but as yet they cannot fix it.

My question is this, when I go to stop the service, it hangs in the "stopping" stage and the only option is to reboot the computer. This is not always easy as one of the PC's is in the conference room and the other in Intensive Care.

What I want to know, is there a way of 'killing' the service, such as in unix? I've tried both Win2K and WinXP boxes.

 

Thats a bit of a pain

have you tried using the restart option

 

Yep, have tried that. The service doesn't actually fail, it just hangs, therefore it won't restart.

 

ok sorry just a thought

anyway following your Unix line of thought ive had a look and come across this
worth a look

 

don't be sorry, I'll take any help I can get.

Thanks, I'll take a browse through that site now!

 

better thank google really only hope it helps Rex out

But ive bookmarked it anyway

 

Wow, that's a great resource, General. Went straight into my favorites.

 

While we are on the taskkill subject, I would like to add:

XP Home does not have this feature built in. Just an FYI.

 

Good info Adryn better hope they are using XP Pro then

 

We are using XP pro, but I want to kill a service, not a task or process. I've been recently informed that Windows cannot do it.

 

Eh...when a service runs, it shows up as a process, unless its a hardware service.

Also, whoever told you it can't be done is wrong.

From a command line: net stop service

To start a service:


From a command line: net start service

Replace service with the name of the service you wish to kill.

 

I have tried stopping it, it just hangs at the stopping stage. When I query it from the command prompt, it gives the reply "Service cannot respond to commands at this time" or something very similar.

I want to kill the service dead as it cannot stop itslef cleanly and hangs.

Having said that, I havent looked for it in the process monitor, maybe I can kill it from there. I'll have another look on monday.