Windows service. Edit the StartName

Question

I need to check and edit the windows service's StartName.

I have founded this solution throught the WMI API:

using (var service = new ManagementObject($"Win32_Service.Name = '{my_name}'"))
{
    using (var inParams = service.GetMethodParameters("Change"))
    {
        inParams["StartName"] = value;
        ManagementBaseObject outParams = service.InvokeMethod("Change", inParams, null);
        outParams.Dispose();
    }
}

When I invoke this code by a new console project application with the Visual Studio that had been lauched as administrator it works fine.

But when I invoke it by the windows service that had loged as LocalSystem i got an exception:

System.Management.ManagementException: Provider Load Failur. in System.Management.ManagementException.ThrowWithExtendedInfo(ManagementStatus errorCode) in System.Management.ManagementObject.InvokeMethod(String methodName, ManagementBaseObject inParameters, InvokeMethodOptions options) ...

What have I missed in this case? What permissions/application state or whatever do I must to change to edit the service StartName by the windows service?

Answer 1

I think that the better approach would be change the name in te registry. You will probably have to start Visual Studio as Administrator. Link: https://stackoverflow.com/a/3887455/637840

The Change() method on WMI got a lot of overhead you don´t need. You will probably make a mistake on some parameter and potentially your service register is going to be broken. Take a look at everything you need to set in order to just change the name by WMI: https://learn.microsoft.com/es-es/windows/desktop/TermServ/win32-terminalservice-change

Anyway, if you need to do it by all means using WMI. You can use ORMi. You have a tutorial on the repo that will show you how to do method working.

Also you can use this as reference: https://medium.com/@luque.nicolas/compare-ormi-and-traditional-net-wmi-implementation-f00db26d10a3