{"id":11012,"date":"2024-02-19T08:45:31","date_gmt":"2024-02-19T16:45:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/?p=11012"},"modified":"2025-12-27T00:35:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-27T08:35:14","slug":"local-session-manager-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/windows-services\/local-session-manager-service\/","title":{"rendered":"Essential Windows Services: Local Session Manager \/ LSM"},"content":{"rendered":"<div align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"no-lazy-load\" src=\"\/blog\/images\/local-session-manager-service-150x150.webp\" title=\"Local Session Manager Service\" alt=\"Local Session Manager Service\" border=\"0\" ><\/div>\n<div id=\"blog-toc-container\" style=\"margin-top:20px;\">\n<p id=\"blog-toc-title\">In this article&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"#what-is-lsm-service\">What is the Local Session Manager (LSM) service?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#stop-local-session-manager\">What happens if I stop Local Session Manager?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#ok-to-disable-lsm\">Is it OK to disable the LSM service?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#local-session-manager-questions\">Questions? Problems?<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p><a name=\"what-is-lsm-service\"><\/a><\/p>\n<hr class=\"blog-section\">\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;\">\n<div style=\"margin:0px;float:right;\"><a href=\"#top\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.coretechnologies.com\/images\/top.jpg\" border=\"0\" width=\"50\" height=\"18\" title=\"Go to the top\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h2 class=\"blog-caption\">What is the Local Session Manager (LSM) service?<\/h2>\n<p>The Local Session Manager is an important Windows Service that establishes a dedicated session\/desktop whenever you log in to your computer. It&#8217;s involved however you sign on &mdash; to the physical console (with the keyboard and mouse) or through a remote connection technology, like RDP.<\/p>\n<p>The service\u2019s display name is <b>Local Session Manager<\/b>. It runs as <a href=\"https:\/\/learn.microsoft.com\/en-us\/windows\/win32\/services\/localsystem-account\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">LocalSystem<\/a> inside the service host process, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Svchost.exe\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">svchost.exe<\/a>. By default, the service is set to start automatically at boot:<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\"><a href=\"\/blog\/images\/local-session-manager-windows-service.png\" class=\"zoomPopup\" title=\"The Local Session Manager Windows Service\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"image-padding\" src=\"\/blog\/images\/local-session-manager-windows-service.png\" title=\"The Local Session Manager Windows Service (click to enlarge)\" alt=\"The Local Session Manager Windows Service\" border=\"0\" width=\"406\" height=\"468\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p><a name=\"stop-local-session-manager\"><\/a><\/p>\n<hr class=\"blog-section\">\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;\">\n<div style=\"margin:0px;float:right;\"><a href=\"#top\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.coretechnologies.com\/images\/top.jpg\" border=\"0\" width=\"50\" height=\"18\" title=\"Go to the top\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h2 class=\"blog-caption\">What happens if I stop Local Session Manager?<\/h2>\n<p>It&#8217;s not easy to stop the LSM service.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, all the service&#8217;s operations are disabled and the action buttons are grayed out when you look at LSM in the built-in <a href=\"\/blog\/windows-services\/essential-tools-windows-services-msc\/\">Services application<\/a>:<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\"><a href=\"\/blog\/images\/lsm-operations-disabled.png\" class=\"zoomPopup\" title=\"All service operations are disabled\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"image-padding\" src=\"\/blog\/images\/lsm-operations-disabled.png\" title=\"All service operations are disabled (click to enlarge)\" alt=\"All service operations are disabled\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p>And the SC command confirms that the service won&#8217;t accept requests to stop:<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\"><a href=\"\/blog\/images\/lsm-not-stoppable.png\" class=\"zoomPopup\" title=\"You can't stop the LSM service\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"image-padding\" src=\"\/blog\/images\/lsm-not-stoppable.png\" title=\"You can't stop the LSM service (click to enlarge)\" alt=\"You can't stop the LSM service\" border=\"0\" width=\"520\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p>Microsoft has really locked-down the Local Session Manager!<\/p>\n<p>But what about <a href=\"\/WindowsServices\/FAQ.html#StuckPending\">terminating the svchost.exe process behind LSM<\/a>? Does that stop the service?<\/p>\n<p>Surprisingly, yes.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"blog-caption\">How to stop the LSM service<\/h3>\n<p>First, we found the process identifier (PID) of LSM from the Services tab in Task Manager. It was 960 on our machine:<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\"><a href=\"\/blog\/images\/find-lsm-service-pid.png\" class=\"zoomPopup\" title=\"Find the LSM PID\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"image-padding\" src=\"\/blog\/images\/find-lsm-service-pid.png\" title=\"Find the LSM PID (click to enlarge)\" alt=\"Find the LSM PID\" border=\"0\" width=\"520\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p>Next, we switched to the Details tab and located the process with PID 960 in the list. From there, we right-clicked the row and chose <b>End task<\/b> from the menu.<\/p>\n<p>After confirming that we really wanted to end the svchost process, Windows terminated PID 960:<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\"><a href=\"\/blog\/images\/terminate-lsm-service-process.png\" class=\"zoomPopup\" title=\"Terminate the LSM process\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"image-padding\" src=\"\/blog\/images\/terminate-lsm-service-process.png\" title=\"Terminate the LSM process (click to enlarge)\" alt=\"Terminate the LSM process\" border=\"0\" width=\"520\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p>And the LSM service stopped:<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\"><a href=\"\/blog\/images\/lsm-service-stopped.png\" class=\"zoomPopup\" title=\"LSM service stopped\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"image-padding\" src=\"\/blog\/images\/lsm-service-stopped.png\" title=\"LSM service stopped (click to enlarge)\" alt=\"LSM service stopped\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<h3 class=\"blog-caption\">What happened after we stopped the LSM service<\/h3>\n<p>At first, there were no visible effects of stopping the Local Session Manager. We weren&#8217;t ejected from our RDP session and all our programs continued to operate normally. Everything was fine.<\/p>\n<p>Yet, because of the tight security controls on the LSM service, we couldn&#8217;t restart it:<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\"><a href=\"\/blog\/images\/error-starting-lsm-service.png\" class=\"zoomPopup\" title=\"Unable to start the LSM service\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"image-padding\" src=\"\/blog\/images\/error-starting-lsm-service.png\" title=\"Unable to start the LSM service (click to enlarge)\" alt=\"Unable to start the LSM service\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p>In any case, everything was normal &mdash; until we decided to log off. When we signed out of our account, our RDP session hung with a black screen.<\/p>\n<p>Afterwards, we simply couldn&#8217;t log in to our computer again. RDP connection windows appeared and quickly vanished without acknowledgement. And when we tried to log in directly on the console, Windows rejected us with a terse, unhelpful error message:<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\"><a href=\"\/blog\/images\/console-logon-rpc-server-unavailable.png\" class=\"zoomPopup\" title=\"The RPC server is unavailable\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"image-padding\" src=\"\/blog\/images\/console-logon-rpc-server-unavailable.png\" title=\"The RPC server is unavailable (click to enlarge)\" alt=\"The RPC server is unavailable\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p>We had to reboot our computer to restore access.<\/p>\n<p>The behavior confirmed that:<\/p>\n<ul style=\"margin-bottom:24px\">\n<li>\n<p>LSM is critical in establishing a new login session, either via RDP or from the physical console;<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>However, once it&#8217;s established a session, LSM is not involved in the ongoing operation of that session.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div class=\"highlight-box-green\">\nSo, in summary, if you stop the Local Session Manager service:<\/p>\n<ol style=\"margin-bottom:24px\">\n<li>\n<p>Existing login sessions will be OK but <b>no one else can log in to your computer<\/b>.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>You may have <b>trouble logging off<\/b> your computer.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>You&#8217;ll have to <b>reboot your computer to restart the service<\/b>. Furthermore, holding down the power button (to kill the power to your PC) may be the only way to reboot.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n<p><a name=\"ok-to-disable-lsm\"><\/a><\/p>\n<hr class=\"blog-section\">\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;\">\n<div style=\"margin:0px;float:right;\"><a href=\"#top\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.coretechnologies.com\/images\/top.jpg\" border=\"0\" width=\"50\" height=\"18\" title=\"Go to the top\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h2 class=\"blog-caption\">Is it OK to disable the LSM service?<\/h2>\n<p>No &mdash; not if you want to sign on to your computer. As described above, you simply can&#8217;t log in when LSM isn&#8217;t running.<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, Microsoft cautions against disabling Local Session Manager:<\/p>\n<div class=\"blog-qa-question-box\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/images\/quotes-transparent-21x21.png\" width=\"21\" height=\"21\" \/>&nbsp;Stopping or disabling this service will result in system instability.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>You should heed that advice. It&#8217;s best to keep the LSM service enabled &mdash; and configured to start automatically at boot.<\/p>\n<p><a name=\"local-session-manager-questions\"><\/a><\/p>\n<hr class=\"blog-section\">\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;\">\n<div style=\"margin:0px;float:right;\"><a href=\"#top\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.coretechnologies.com\/images\/top.jpg\" border=\"0\" width=\"50\" height=\"18\" title=\"Go to the top\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h2 class=\"blog-caption\">Questions? Problems?<\/h2>\n<p>If you would like to know more about the Local Session Manager service, or you have a specific problem, please feel free to <a href=\"\/support\/\">get in touch<\/a>. We will do our best to help you!<\/p>\n<div style=\"margin-top:30px\" align=\"center\">\n<div class=\"cta-button-1\">\n<table role=\"presentation\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" border=\"0\" align=\"left\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td align=\"center\"><a href=\"\/blog\/tag\/essential-windows-services\/\" title=\"Find more important Windows Services\"><span><nobr>More Essential Windows Services&#8230;<\/nobr><\/span><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<!-- relpost-thumb-wrapper --><div class=\"relpost-thumb-wrapper\"><!-- filter-class --><div class=\"relpost-thumb-container\"><style>.relpost-block-single-image, .relpost-post-image { margin-bottom: 10px; }<\/style><h3>You may also like...<\/h3><div style=\"clear: both\"><\/div><div style=\"clear: both\"><\/div><!-- relpost-block-container --><div class=\"relpost-block-container relpost-block-column-layout\" style=\"--relposth-columns: 3;--relposth-columns_t: 2; --relposth-columns_m: 2\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/windows\/windows-server-2022\/\"class=\"relpost-block-single\" ><div class=\"relpost-custom-block-single\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"relpost-block-single-image\" alt=\"Windows Server 2022: A Few Improvements, but No Changes to Windows Services\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/windows-server-2022-standard-150x150-1.png\" style=\"aspect-ratio:1\/1\" style=\"aspect-ratio:1\/1\"><\/img><div class=\"relpost-block-single-text\"  style=\"height: 75px;font-family: Arial;  font-size: 12px;  color: #333333;\"><h2 class=\"relpost_card_title\">Windows Server 2022: A Few Improvements, but No Changes to Windows Services<\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/windows-services\/legacy-desktop-application-questions\/\"class=\"relpost-block-single\" ><div class=\"relpost-custom-block-single\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"relpost-block-single-image\" alt=\"Wondering if Your Legacy Desktop Application Will Work as a Windows Service? 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What happens if I stop Local Session Manager? Is it OK to disable the LSM service? Questions? Problems? What is the Local Session Manager (LSM) service? The Local Session &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/windows-services\/local-session-manager-service\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12321,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[78,343,344,151,196],"class_list":["post-11012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-windows-services","tag-essential-windows-services","tag-local-session-manager","tag-lsm-service","tag-services-msc","tag-windows-services-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11012"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11012\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13294,"href":"https:\/\/www.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11012\/revisions\/13294"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}