? Setting Service Timeout

Hi,

This is the closest newsgroup I could find for what I need.

I am looking for a way to specify the timeout for an NT service. Specifically, there are a couple of services that sometimes hang
on startup (COM+ Event System, Task Scheduler) and this causes a massively long bootup (5+ minutes). Worse still, it seems to be
doing this more and more often now. Since I have been unable to identify the cause (especially since it's intermittent), I have
resigned myself to at least alleviate the symptom.

I want to set the timeout to a smaller value so that if they do hang, I don't have to wait forever to get control of my system.
Even if they were critical to the functioning of my system (they are not), I'd rather get control right away so that I can reboot
and try again instead of waiting five minutes to try again.

I've looked everywhere and while I can find the occasional mention of the existence of service timeout values, I can't find any
mention on how to set them.

Can anyone please tell me how I can do this? It's really driving me crazy.


Thanks a lot.

--
Alec S.
news/alec->synetech/cjb/net

WaitToKillServiceTimeout
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/...entry/26734.asp

Why not just disable both COM+ Event System & Task Scheduler?

I have them both disabled.

However, Task Scheduler service is needed if you use Prefetch.

This is the only downside that I see to having COM+ Event System service
disabled....
Note if disabling this service then at every boot there will be generated a
warning in the Event Log about this service not running.

--
Hope this helps. Let us know.

Wes
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User

In news:O1CeSkXwGHA.1956@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl,
Alec S. <@> hunted and pecked:
> Hi,
>
> This is the closest newsgroup I could find for what I need.
>
> I am looking for a way to specify the timeout for an NT service.
> Specifically, there are a couple of services that sometimes hang on
> startup (COM+ Event System, Task Scheduler) and this causes a massively
> long bootup (5+ minutes). Worse still, it seems to be doing this more
> and more often now. Since I have been unable to identify the cause
> (especially since it's intermittent), I have resigned myself to at least
> alleviate the symptom.
>
> I want to set the timeout to a smaller value so that if they do hang, I
> don't have to wait forever to get control of my system. Even if they were
> critical to the functioning of my system (they are not), I'd rather get
> control right away so that I can reboot and try again instead of waiting
> five minutes to try again.
>
> I've looked everywhere and while I can find the occasional mention of the
> existence of service timeout values, I can't find any mention on how to
> set them.
>
> Can anyone please tell me how I can do this? It's really driving me
> crazy.
>
>
> Thanks a lot.
>
> --
> Alec S.
> news/alec->synetech/cjb/net

> I don't have to wait forever to get control of my system.

Are you talking about before you get to the welcome/login screen when
booting? you can disable them thru the services snap-in of the
computer management console. alternatively, you can use a batch file
or scripting to shell the 'net stop' command to turn them off
programatically (this would have to be done once you are in windows
tho)

HTH

AR

Alec S. wrote:
> Hi,
>
> This is the closest newsgroup I could find for what I need.
>
> I am looking for a way to specify the timeout for an NT service.
> Specifically, there are a couple of services that sometimes hang on
> startup (COM+ Event System, Task Scheduler) and this causes a
> massively long bootup (5+ minutes). Worse still, it seems to be
> doing this more and more often now. Since I have been unable to
> identify the cause (especially since it's intermittent), I have
> resigned myself to at least alleviate the symptom.
>
> I want to set the timeout to a smaller value so that if they do hang,
> I don't have to wait forever to get control of my system. Even if
> they were critical to the functioning of my system (they are not),
> I'd rather get control right away so that I can reboot and try again
> instead of waiting five minutes to try again.
>
> I've looked everywhere and while I can find the occasional mention of
> the existence of service timeout values, I can't find any mention on
> how to set them.
>
> Can anyone please tell me how I can do this? It's really driving me
> crazy.
>
>
> Thanks a lot.

Personal opinion of course, and you're entitled to your own opinion:

Although I understand your frustration I think if it were me I would opt to
fix it somehow. Even if what you propose can be done, it's only
hiding/covering a problem that exists somewhere and may manifest itself in
other ways eventually. I had a very similar problem in fact, and never was
able to fix it until I finally bit the bullet, did a final backup, and
reinstalled everything from scratch.
My first effort was to reinstall from an image but the problem had been
there for a long time so next I reinstalled the OS and only used the image
for non-OS data. It workled; now Event Viewer is still nearly empty every
time I check it and completely devoid of any errors or warnings.

HTH
Pop`

"Pop`" <nodoby@devnull.spamcop.net> wrote in message news:OLcTgGZwGHA.4868@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
> Although I understand your frustration I think if it were me I would opt to
> fix it somehow. Even if what you propose can be done, it's only
> hiding/covering a problem that exists somewhere and may manifest itself in
> other ways eventually. I had a very similar problem in fact, and never was
> able to fix it until I finally bit the bullet, did a final backup, and
> reinstalled everything from scratch.
> My first effort was to reinstall from an image but the problem had been
> there for a long time so next I reinstalled the OS and only used the image
> for non-OS data. It workled; now Event Viewer is still nearly empty every
> time I check it and completely devoid of any errors or warnings.


Actually I have not had to reinstall Windows for almost four years because I have a wonderful system that I devised based on drive
imaging. Whenever my system bogs down from WinRot™, I just restore it from the latest image (I have more than a dozen for the OS
alone). Unfortunately even that will only work for so long, eventually newer images which include updates will start becoming less
and less stable. That's what's happened here. I could restore an older image from before this started happening, but then it would
not have all the latest patches and such.

I've already tried looking for the cause and came up empty. I searched far and wide, I've run test after test, and diagnosed until
I was blue in the face, but could not find a reason for it. There just isn't enough information given as to why it's happening or
what's causing it.

I am already planning to wipe everything (replaceable) and start over, but at this point it's going to be such a massive undertaking
(countless pieces of software and more setting and configurations than there are atoms in the universe, let alone all the testing to
make sure it's all good) that I am trying to put it off for now. I intend to wait until either I end up moving to Vista which would
require starting over anyway, or until I can get updates to all my software. Either way, I am band-aiding until then.

Yes, I could disable them but even if I didn't have an urgent reason to do this, I still want to know how to set NT service
timeouts. I have read that MySQL uses a timeout of 24 hours but could not find where that is stored. I would really like to find
out how to do this anyway.


--
Alec S.
news/alec->synetech/cjb/net

Alec S. wrote:

> Actually I have not had to reinstall Windows for almost four years
> because I have a wonderful system that I devised based on drive
> imaging.


I have never reinstalled Windows--XP or any other version (and I've run
almost all of them since Windows 3.0, each from the time it was released
until the next version). And I've never needed to restore everything from
an image, either.

With a little bit of care, anyone can do the same. The thought that Windows
needs periodic reinstallation is simply wrong.

--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup

"Ken Blake" <kblake@this.is.an.invalid.domain> wrote in message news:u8NpoufwGHA.2120@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
> I have never reinstalled Windows--XP or any other version (and I've run
> almost all of them since Windows 3.0, each from the time it was released
> until the next version). And I've never needed to restore everything from
> an image, either.
>
> With a little bit of care, anyone can do the same. The thought that Windows
> needs periodic reinstallation is simply wrong.


I'm sure there are plenty of people who don't need to reinstall Windows. There are also a lot of people who use only three programs
their whole lives. People who test software, develop software, or pretty much anything besides just browsing the Internet, email,
and viewing pictures of the grandkids, will eventually have reason to clean house, whether that means reinstalling or not.



Anyway, back to the point, I would like to know how to set service timeouts for use in my own NT services.


--
Alec S.
news/alec->synetech/cjb/net

Alec S. wrote:

> "Ken Blake" <kblake@this.is.an.invalid.domain> wrote in message
> news:u8NpoufwGHA.2120@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
>> I have never reinstalled Windows--XP or any other version (and I've
>> run almost all of them since Windows 3.0, each from the time it was
>> released until the next version). And I've never needed to restore
>> everything from an image, either.
>>
>> With a little bit of care, anyone can do the same. The thought that
>> Windows needs periodic reinstallation is simply wrong.
>
>
> I'm sure there are plenty of people who don't need to reinstall
> Windows. There are also a lot of people who use only three programs
> their whole lives. People who test software, develop software, or
> pretty much anything besides just browsing the Internet, email, and
> viewing pictures of the grandkids, will eventually have reason to
> clean house, whether that means reinstalling or not.



I'm far from from one of those three-programs people. And I've never needed
to clean "house," either.

And I know lots of other people, also nowhere near three-programs people,
who have never needed to reinstall or do any dramatic housecleaning.

--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup

It took me less than ten minutes on Google to find this.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\ServiceName\Parameters

Right click in the right hand pane | Point to New | Click DWORD Value and
add...

Value Name: WaitHintStart
Data Type: REG_DWORD
Value: <Time to wait for service to start in milliseconds>

To estimate what numbers should be entered for the Value, Microsoft
recommends that you perform the following steps:

1. Start the service, and then time how long it takes to start.
2. Modify the numbers according to the amount of time that you think it will
take to start. Over estimate the time, because if the service ever takes
longer to start, then any of the other dependants services will not start.

--
Hope this helps. Let us know.

Wes
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User

In news:u78X5uhwGHA.4032@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl,
Alec S. <@> hunted and pecked:
> "Ken Blake" <kblake@this.is.an.invalid.domain> wrote in message
> news:u8NpoufwGHA.2120@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
>> I have never reinstalled Windows--XP or any other version (and I've run
>> almost all of them since Windows 3.0, each from the time it was released
>> until the next version). And I've never needed to restore everything
>> from an image, either.
>>
>> With a little bit of care, anyone can do the same. The thought that
>> Windows needs periodic reinstallation is simply wrong.
>
>
> I'm sure there are plenty of people who don't need to reinstall Windows.
> There are also a lot of people who use only three programs their whole
> lives. People who test software, develop software, or pretty much
> anything besides just browsing the Internet, email, and viewing pictures
> of the grandkids, will eventually have reason to clean house, whether
> that means reinstalling or not.
>
>
>
> Anyway, back to the point, I would like to know how to set service
> timeouts for use in my own NT services.
>
>
> --
> Alec S.
> news/alec->synetech/cjb/net

> I'm far from from one of those three-programs people. And I've never needed
> to clean "house," either.
>
> And I know lots of other people, also nowhere near three-programs people,
> who have never needed to reinstall or do any dramatic housecleaning.


Well then, care to share your secret? Why keep your "little bit of care" a secret?

--
Alec S.
news/alec->synetech/cjb/net