How to find Dependencies of a Windows Service

Windows Services are one of the most important cores of the Windows operating system. They work in the background doing a lot of work, including updating your system, keeping the clicks running, running background tasks, and so on. That said, different services depend on each other as well and may not work without each other. These types of services are called dependencies, and they are like counterparts for each other. The reason why they are built is that they are small building blocks, making it easy to manage. Many a time, Services stop, which results in a temporary disruption. In this post, we will share how to find the dependencies of a Windows Service in case of a problem.

All the services on Windows 11/10 are easy to access. You can search them using the search on the Taskbar, and it will offer you a complete list of all Windows Services.

Find Dependencies of a Windows Service

In case you find something is wrong with services, either manually or through an error message, you need to check the list of Windows Services and find if something is disabled or stopped. Sometimes components fail to start themselves or get disabled for unknown reasons. This makes other services stop too.

To check the list of dependencies of a service, follow the steps below:

• Open Windows Services and go to the services list, and select one of the services.
• Right-click and select Properties.
• This will open another window that has details about that service. Switch to Dependencies tab.
• Here you can see two things
  • A list of services on which this service depends. (This service depends on the following system components). It means that all these services must run for the service to be able to start.
  • A list of system components that depend on this service. (The following system components depend on this service)

Related: The dependency Service or Group failed to start

How to make sure Windows Services are working

All Windows Services can be automated to start, disabled, or manually started. In case of trouble, the best way is to set them to start automatically. We highly recommend you not to disable or set them to manual unless you know what you are doing. However, you can choose to use the automatic but delayed option to make sure they start and still don’t slow down the login.

Note: You cannot change the startup type for all services. They are controlled by the system.

• Switch to General Tab and look for the label which says “Startup Type”
• Select Automatic from the Dropdown if you want it like that, else you can always choose between Automatic Delayed Start.

In case this is the service you are having trouble with, you can try to stop it completely and then start it again. You also have the option to Pause and Resume when needed.

The service manager windows also offer you to quickly stop, restart, pause, and resume with controls in the menu, or you can do it with a right-click as well.

How to restart Services automatically

It is possible to restart the services automatically in case they fail. Windows Services has this feature inbuilt under Recovery tab. You can choose to restart the service automatically twice. If it doesn’t work, you can choose to either restart it again, reset the count, and keep trying again. Though the smart way of doing this would take an action to notify you about the subsequent service failures.

Now that you know almost everything about the services and can automatically start, it will be handy in situations. However, be warned that you should not manually stop services if they are running.

See this post if Windows Services will not start.