[SOLVED] Set-Service: Cannot stop service because it is dependent on other services

Set-Service: Cannot stop service because it is dependent on other services

When I run the following command:

Set-Service -ComputerName appserver -Name MyService -Status Stopped

I get an error message:

Set-Service : Cannot stop service 'My Service (MyService)' because it is
dependent on other services.
At line:1 char:12
+ Set-Service <<<<  -ComputerName appserver -Name MyService -Status Stopped
    + CategoryInfo          : InvalidOperation: (System.ServiceProcess.ServiceController:ServiceController) [Set-Service], ServiceCommandException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : ServiceIsDependentOnNoForce,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.SetServiceCommand

I can stop the service from the services.msc GUI, and I can start the service with Set-Service, but I can't stop it again.

It is true that the service depends on some other services, but I don't understand why that would prevent me from stopping it—nothing else depends on it.

Solution

I eventually resolved this problem with the following code, which calls sc to stop the service and then waits for it to finish stopping. This achieves the same result as expected from Set-Service -Status Stopped; that is, when it returns the service has been stopped. (sc on its own starts to stop the service, but does not wait until it has finished stopping.)

Start-Process "$env:WINDIR\system32\sc.exe" \\APPSERVER,stop,MyService -NoNewWindow -Wait
while ((Get-Service -ComputerName APPSERVER -Name MyService | 
Select -ExpandProperty Status) -ne 'Stopped') {
    Write-Host "Waiting for service to stop..."
    Start-Sleep -Seconds 10
}