Stop and restart services remotely using Set-Service

Question

I have a list of 10-15 services that I usually need to restart on 6 servers. I have a script that calls a list of services, then calls a list of servers, and then stops all services:

$Services = Get-Content -Path "C:\Powershell\Services.txt" $Machines = Get-Content -Path "C:\Powershell\Machines.txt" Get-Service -Name $Services -ComputerName $Machines | Set-Service -Status Stopped 

Then I have another separate script to run them again:

 $Services = Get-Content -Path "C:\Powershell\Services.txt" $Machines = Get-Content -Path "C:\Powershell\Machines.txt" Get-Service -Name $Services -ComputerName $Machines | Set-Service -Status Running 

I checked and cannot find a way to put it in one script. As I understand it, Set-Service has the ability to stop, start, and pause services, rather than restarting them at the same time.

Any ideas? I might have missed something completely obvious.

Answer 1

To restart services, simply use Restart-Service :

 $Services = Get-Content -Path "C:\Powershell\Services.txt" $Machines = Get-Content -Path "C:\Powershell\Machines.txt" Get-Service -Name $Services -ComputerName $Machines | Restart-Service 

Since, according to the comments, PowerShell v6 removed remote access support from *-Service you need to resort to Invoke-Command for remote execution when starting v6 or newer, for example like this:

 Invoke-Command -Computer $Machines -ScriptBlock { Get-Service -Name $using:Services -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Restart-Service } 

or like this:

 Invoke-Command -Computer $Machines -ScriptBlock { Restart-Service $using:Services -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue } 

Another option would be WMI:

 $fltr = ($Services | ForEach-Object { 'Name="{0}"' -f $_ }) -join ' or ' Get-WmiObject Win32_Service -Computer $Machines -Filter $fltr | ForEach-Object { $_.StopService() $_.StartService() } 

Answer 2

I'm with Ansgar, this should work

 $Services = Get-Content -Path "C:\Powershell\Services.txt" $Machines = Get-Content -Path "C:\Powershell\Machines.txt" foreach ($service in $services){ foreach ($computer in $Machines){ Invoke-Command -ComputerName $computer -ScriptBlock{ Restart-Service -DisplayName $service} } } 

it's a little dirty but should give you a starting point

Sorry, I forgot to take the time to explain what is happening, so you import each of your txt documents and then process each service and each computer and restart the services.

Answer 3

You can try this command with one liner:

 Get-Content .\services.txt | %{Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Service -ComputerName (Get-Content .\computers.txt) -Filter "Name='$_'"} | %{$_.StopService()}; Get-Content .\services.txt | %{Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Service -ComputerName (Get-Content .\computers.txt) -Filter "Name='$_'"} | %{$_.StartService()}