Starting and stopping WMI service

Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) runs as a service with the display name Windows Management Instrumentation and the service name winmgmt. WMI runs automatically at system startup under the LocalSystem account. If WMI isn't running, it automatically starts when the first management application or script requests connection to a WMI namespace.

Several other services depend on the WMI service, based on the operating system version that the system is running.

Start winmgmt service

The following procedure describes how to start the WMI service:

1. At a command prompt, enter net start winmgmt [/<switch>].

   For more information about the switches that are available, see winmgmt. You use the built-in Administrator account or an account in the Administrators group running with elevated rights to start the WMI service. For more information, see User Account Control and WMI.

2. Other services that are dependent on the WMI service, such as SMS Agent Host or Windows Firewall, don't automatically restart.

Stop winmgmt service

The following procedure describes how to stop the WMI service:

1. At a command prompt, enter net stop winmgmt.

2. Other services that are dependent on the WMI service also halt, such as SMS Agent Host or Windows Firewall.

See also

Using the WMI command-line tools