Microsoft® Visual Basic® .NET Programmer's Cookbook

Interact with Windows Services on Another Computer

Problem

You need to start or stop a service that is running on another computer.

Solution

Create a ServiceController instance using the constructor that accepts a machine name. You can then use the Stop and Start methods of the ServiceController class.

Discussion

You can create a ServiceController instance that represents a service running on another computer, provided that you have the required network rights, by specifying the computer name in the ServiceController constructor. Here’s one example:

Dim TestService As New ServiceController("TestService", " ComputerName")

You can also use GetServices or GetDevices to retrieve service information from another computer by supplying a machine name.

Dim Services() ...