Command .startservice() not working in Powershell

Question

I have a little script where the user enters the script name (the description name) and has the option to modify the properties. This is done with a GUI interface: a textbox and some drop-down lists. I tried several ways to make it but none of them worked.

Here is how I retrieve the service information:

$thisservice = Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Service -ComputerName $Server | Where {     $_.displayName -eq $serviceBox.text }

I look at $server computer and match up the "service display name" to the value contained in the textbox field: $_.displayName -eq $serviceBox.text . This works well, if I list the data I get exactly what is in the service console: .name, .description, .state, .startmode, .displayname

I store the service name in a variable:

$servicename = $thisservice.name

I know you can not start a service unless it is on "Manual" or "auto" so first I set it to auto. Here I tryed to different ways but none worked:

$servicename.ChangeStartMode("Auto")

and

 Set-Service $servicename -StartupType Auto

and then I start the service (but this doesn't work either even if I preset the state-mode on Auto form the service manager):

$servicename.startservice()

Also the $servicename.stopservcie() fails.

I tried this on 2 different machines, on both I have admin rights, I tryed running the script with Admin mode, same result. I even tried it directly from PS console and I couldn't change the service state! What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

Your problem is here: $servicename = $thisservice.name

By doing that you set $servicename to be a string, not the service object. Therefore you can't call service methods on it any more.

You should be able to just do:

$thisservice.ChangeStartMode("Automatic")
$thisservice.StartService()