Disable a Windows service from the command line

I want to disable a Windows service but I don't want to:

1. Open the "Services" management console
2. Scroll to the name of the service
3. Right-click Properties (or double-click)
4. Change the Startup Type: to disabled
5. Apply
6. Click "Stop"

I don't want to remove a Windows service but instead, just disable it.

4 Answers

sc config "Name of Service" start= disabled
sc stop "Name of Service"

The space after the "start=" is important

You can see service name by double clicking a service on Services screen:

In addition to Kevin's answer, if you need to control more than one service, or select them based on some criteria, you can use wmic. Simple use to stop only 1 service (Sqlwriter in my example) would be:
wmic service where name='SQLWriter' call ChangeStartmode Disabled

but the tool is much more powerful, for example to set disabled mode for all services with caption starting with SQL and not already disabled you could say:

wmic service where "caption like 'SQL%' and Startmode<>'Disabled'" call ChangeStartmode Disabled

SC STOP "<nameservice>"

SC CONFIG "<nameservice>" START= ( BOOT, or SYSTEM, or AUTO, or DEMAND, or DISABLED, or DELAYED-AUTO )

Link: Sc config

Quoting from KB248660:

The Reg.exe utility from the Microsoft Windows NT Resource Kit must be installed on your computer.

To change the startup value for a service on a local computer by using the command line, type the following at the command prompt and then press ENTER: REG UPDATE HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\servicename\Start=X where servicename is the name of the service as it appears in the registry and X is either a 2, a 3, or a 4 (representing automatic startup, manual startup, or disabled, respectively).

To change the startup value for a service on a remote computer by using the command line locally, type the following at the command prompt and press ENTER: REG UPDATE HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\servicename\Start=X \servername where servicename is the name of the service as it appears in the registry, X is either a 2, a 3, or a 4 (representing automatic startup, manual startup, or disabled, respectively), and servername is the name of the remote server.

To see how the service name appears in the registry, view the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\