Under step 1, stopping and starting a service can also be done with a simple batch file using the SC command.

@echo off
rem stop service
SC \\ServerName stop ServiceName > nul
rem wait 3 seconds
ping 1.1.1.1 -n 1 -w 3000 > nul
rem start service
SC \\ServerName start ServiceName > nul

I believe this post has now been superseded, as within a 'wmiservicesensor' you can now choose two options under "If Service is Not Running"? - namely are:

"Start/Restart Service" "Do Nothing"

I assume this means it will do what it says on the tin? (i.e. restart the service), but I wondered what the frequency of the attempted restarts are? / how you can get notified of restarts? etc.

Sorry if this is the wrong place to put this question, but I can't find any information on this new feature within the product.

Any help appreciated!

That is correct, it will try to restart the service. The sensor will try to restart the service once. A notification would be triggered by defining a trigger for the "When condition clears..." entry (seeing as the sensor would switch from an error to an up state).

Hi,

We would like to restart a Windows Service based on a specific criteria; ex. high memory consumption. We've created the powershell script to be used as a custom notification with parameters %host and %ServiceDisplayName%, but we can't figure out the placeholder that refers to the Service Display Name as detected by the WMI Service Monitor.

As a reference:

# Restart Windows Service
# 
# The Parameter section consists of 2 parameters: ComputerName, DisplayName
# 

if ($Args.Count -lt 2)
{

    Write-Host "Not enough Arguments. ComputerName and DisplayName must be specified."
    exit 1;
}
elseif ($Args.Count -eq 2)
{

    $service = Get-Service -ComputerName $Args[0] -DisplayName $Args[1] -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

    if ($service.Length -gt 0)
    {
        # Service exists
        Try
        {
            (get-service -ComputerName $Args[0] -DisplayName $Args[1]).Stop()
            (get-service -ComputerName $Args[0] -DisplayName $Args[1]) | Set-Service -Status Running
            exit 0;
        }
        Catch
        {
            exit 2;
        }
    } 
    else
    {
        Write-Host "Service not found"
        exit 2;
    }
} 
else
{
    Write-Host "Too many arguments."
    exit 2;
}

Simply put the friendly name in the sensor comments and use %comments as the placeholder :)

Here's a different take on the Powershell variant, this does a remote connection via Invoke-Command and runs the other commands locally. The advantage of this is approach is that you can provide credentials when starting the Invoke-Command.

# Restart Service on Remote Computer
# $server - The server on which the server should be restarted, use FQDN for reliability: 'server.domain.tld'
# $account - The account to be used to connect via powershell remoting, use 'domain.tld\account' format
# $password - The password of the account
# $serviceName - The displayname of the Service, For instance 'SNMP Service'
# Parameters in PRTG can be: -server 'server.contoso.com' -account 'contoso.com\john.doe' -password 'mysafepassword' -serviceName 'PRTG Probe Service'

param(
    [string]$server = 'server.contoso.com',
    [string]$account = 'contoso.com\john.doe',
    [string]$password = 'mysafepassword',
    [string]$serviceName = 'PRTG Probe Service'
)

$pass = ConvertTo-SecureString -AsPlainText $password -Force
$credential = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential -ArgumentList $account,$pass

Invoke-Command -ComputerName $server -Credential $credential -ArgumentList $serviceName -ScriptBlock {

    param(
    [string]$serviceName
    )

    try {
        Stop-Service -DisplayName $serviceName -WarningAction SilentlyContinue
        Write-Output "Stop service $($serviceName): OK"
    }catch{
		Write-Output "Stop service $($serviceName): Failed - $($_.Exception.Message)"
	}

    try {
        Start-Service -DisplayName $serviceName -WarningAction SilentlyContinue
        Write-Output "Start service $($serviceName): OK"
    }catch{
		Write-Output "Start service $($serviceName): Failed - $($_.Exception.Message)"
	}
Exit 0
}