Your Windows Service Stopped. Why Didn't Windows Restart It?

You configured Windows Service Recovery to restart your important service after a failure.

But the application is still experiencing downtime.

Why is that?

The problem with relying on the Recovery tab alone

Windows Recovery is useful, but it is primarily designed to react when a service terminates abnormally. As such, it can promptly restart your service if it crashes.

However, the built-in Recovery tab doesn't cover every way a critical service can become unavailable.

For example, suppose an overnight update stops your database, web server or printer service. In that case, Windows sees a normal stop, so Recovery does nothing. And you have the pleasure of waking up to discover the outage the next morning.

Unfortunately the gaps go well beyond negligent updates. The next section discusses where the Recovery tab falls short.

Eight failures Windows Service Recovery won't handle

The truth is that Windows Service Recovery cannot restart your service if it:

• Fails to start after a reboot

• Is stopped manually by a user, script, installer or update

• Gets stuck in in the Starting or Stopping state

• Consumes too much memory, CPU or other resources

• Reports a critical error but keeps running

• Needs to be reset because a supporting service failed

• Stops responding to network requests

• Remains running but stops doing useful work (is "dead on its feet")

How Service Protector closes the gaps

Teams needing more than basic crash recovery rely on our professional Service Protector utility. It goes well beyond the Recovery tab.

Service Protector is a sophisticated watchdog with a single, unambiguous mission:

It works by constantly interrogating your services to detect subtle problems, and automatically takes action to resolve them.

What Service Protector can watch for (while you sleep soundly at night)

Service Protector monitors your services to catch:

• Unexpected/accidental stops

• Startup and shutdown hangs

• High memory, CPU and handle usage

• Web servers that stop responding or return HTTP errors

• Network applications that stop accepting connections

• Failing supporting services or applications

• Critical errors written to the Windows Event Logs

And if those extra defenses aren't enough, you can extend Service Protector with your own custom health checks. That gives you the flexibility to react to whatever challenges your unique situation brings.

How to bulletproof your Windows Service (in under 3 minutes)

1. Download and install Service Protector (2 minutes)
   Get the latest version from the download page.

2. Start Service Protector (10 seconds)
   Launch Service Protector from the Start menu or desktop shortcut.

3. Create a new entry for your service (10 seconds)
   Select Protector > Add to open the configuration window:

   

4. Select your service (15 seconds)
   Choose your Windows Service from the list of all services running on your machine:

5. Save (15 seconds)
   Click the Save button. After a few seconds, Service Protector will start monitoring your service.

That's it. For most services, that's all you need. Come back later for the advanced features.

Try Service Protector completely free for a month — no strings attached

Download the free 30-day trial and put Service Protector to the test yourself, in your unique environment. Setup takes a couple of minutes, and you'll know soon if it's what you need.

• 100% compatible with all current versions of Windows
• No signup necessary
• No credit card required
• No advertising of any kind
• Easy uninstall if it doesn't solve your problem

Trusted by large organizations for over 20 years

Here's a small sample of the hundreds of businesses that rely on our enterprise-grade software. You'll be in great company!