Killing every damn service in the room

Sometimes you need to kill every damn windows service on a machine. To reinstall some binaries or running updates. Yes it’s indicative of a deeper problem. But darn it, sometimes it has to happen.

Credit to Dead Platypus for cooking this one up:


$RetryCount = 2

$ServicesToStop =
'Service1',
'Service2',
'Service3',
'Service4',
'Service5',
'Service6',
'Service7',
'Service8'


foreach ($ServiceName in $ServicesToStop) {
    $ServiceStopped = $false
    $ServiceStopTries = 0

    # It's time to go
    while (-Not $ServiceStopped -And $ServiceStopTries -lt $RetryCount) {
        $ServiceStopTries++
        write-host "Stopping service $ServiceName. Attempt $ServiceStopTries." -ForegroundColor Green
        try {
            #Stop the thing
            Stop-Service -Name $ServiceName -ErrorAction Stop -Force -NoWait
        }
        catch { }
        $Service = Get-Service -Name $ServiceName
        # Validate that i has indeed stopped
        if ($Service.Status -eq "Stopped") {
            $ServiceStopped = $true
        }
        else {
            Start-Sleep -s 5
        }
    }


    # It wasn't a question
    if (-Not $ServiceStopped) {
        $Id = Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Service -Filter "Name LIKE '$ServiceName'" |
        Select-Object -ExpandProperty ProcessId
        write-host "Service $ServiceName could not be stopped. Killing process with id $Id" -ForegroundColor Red
        #Kill the process
        Stop-Process -PassThru -Id $Id -Force
        Start-Sleep -s 5
    }
    $ServiceStopStartTime = Get-Date
    while (-Not $ServiceStopped -And $ServiceStopStartTime -gt (Get-Date).AddMinutes(-60)) {
        $Service = Get-Service -Name $ServiceName
        if ($Service.Status -eq "Stopped") {
            $ServiceStopped = $true
        }
        else {
            Start-Sleep -s 5
        }
    }

    # You win this time
    if (-Not $ServiceStopped) {
        write-error "Service $ServiceName could not be stopped and its process with id '$Id' could not be killed" -ForegroundColor Red
        exit 1
    }
}