FIXED!! - Win2K (with SP1) - I can't start or stop services any more

[JonB]

Starting four days ago, I noticed on re-boot that my Norton Anti-Virus icon in systray was crossed out. The Auto-Protect service had not started and would not start. When I went into the Service Manager panel, I found that I couldn't start, stop or modify any existing services. If I do, the Service Manager just hangs. I tried re-installing SP1, but the update.exe also hangs.

Now, the computer runs all programs just like normal. It isn't slower, it doesn't crash, I just can't control ANY services anymore.

The last thing I remember doing that might be significant was that I changed one service from Manual to Automatic. I have changed it back to Manual (using Regedit), but it didn't fix the problem.

Any clues?? I'm not currently ready to reformat. Maybe another week or two.

 

[StuckMojo]

can you start and stop them from the command line? (net start [service])

maybe the permissions on a registry key got messed up?

 

[JonB]

I haven't tried that, but will when I get home. I did run RegClean, but saw no improvement and it did not report ANY errors.

 

[JonB]

OK, this looks like the problem, but how do I fix it???

The "Logical Disk Manager Administrative Service" is shown as "Starting" instead of Started or Stopped. Been this way for hours. I believe that, as long as one service is hung, I cannot start or stop another.

Anybody seen something like that before??

 

[JonB]

Wow, problem solved and it appears I did it to myself.

Looks like the Logical Disk Manager Administrative Service should NOT be put in Automatic start. Leave it manual. Since it won't start automatically, it just hangs up in the background and keeps all other services from starting and stopping.

The services control panel made it more difficult than it needed to be, though. The status of "Starting" sure does look just like "Started" when you glance down the list. dasm

The tip that made this "fixable" was going into the list of services in the registry and changing the Start Mode value.