Windows – Disable a Windows service from the command line

Try, on the command line:

sc query

and look through that. You could >redirect to a file, as so:

sc query > output.txt

and use a text editor to search through it (And seeing as this creates a comprehensive list of processes, you could keep it around)

Bonus point: If you have a version of grep installed, either from cygwin, or unxutils, or wherever, try:

sc query | grep -i -A 1 "short name"

trying this with uxsms, the DWM service, I get

SERVICE_NAME: UxSms
DISPLAY_NAME: Desktop Window Manager Session Manager

To create a nice listing, you could use

sc query | grep -A 1 "SERVICE_NAME" > Services.txt

Just in case someone will face the same questions on Windows 8/8.1 - there is now build-in option to stop both Windows Defender-related services:

• Windows Defender Network Inspection Service and
• Windows Defender Service: