How to remotely control a Windows Service with ServiceController?

Question

I'm trying to control Windows Services that are installed in a remote computer. I'm using the ServiceController class.

I have this:

ServiceController svc =  new ServiceController("MyWindowsService", "COMPUTER_NAME");

With this, I can get the status of the Windows Service like this:

string status = svc.Status.ToString();

But I can't control the Windows Service (by doing svc.Start(); or svc.Stop();). I get the following exception:

Cannot open Servicexxx service on computer 'COMPUTER_NAME'

That's normal, I suppose there is something to do with access permissions. But how? I've looked into Google but didn't find what I was looking for. However I often read something related to impersonation, but I don't know what that means.

NB: The local and remote computers are both running Win XP Pro.

Answer 1

Problem solved.

Impersonation consists in running a piece of code using a certain logon/password. I found this very useful project: http://www.codeproject.com/KB/cs/svcmgr.aspx?display=Print that helped me a lot!

Answer 2

Starting and stopping services is a highly privileged operation, normally available only to administrators. Ensure that the user account you use has sufficient privileges on the target machine. Ask more questions about it at serverfault.com