ServiceState class

A read-only snapshot of an installed service’s current state as reported by the SCM. Returned by Services.QueryStateOfService; not directly user-instantiable.

Dim state As ServiceState
Set state = Services.QueryStateOfService("MyService")

Debug.Print state.CurrentStateText, "PID " & state.ProcessId

The snapshot is taken once at construction time and never refreshed. To monitor a service over time, call Services.QueryStateOfService again at each sampling interval — typically from a low-frequency Timer.

The constructor opens the SCM with SC_MANAGER_CONNECT, opens the service with SERVICE_QUERY_STATUS, calls QueryServiceStatusEx(SC_STATUS_PROCESS_INFO, ...), and copies the result into a private buffer. The three failure modes — SCM open failed, service not installed, status query failed — all raise run-time error 5 with a descriptive message. Wrap the call in On Error Resume Next if your UI needs to distinguish “service exists and is running” from “service is not installed”:

Private Function GetStateText(ByVal serviceName As String) As String
    On Error Resume Next
    Dim state As ServiceState
    Set state = Services.QueryStateOfService(serviceName)
    If Err.Number = 0 Then
        GetStateText = state.CurrentStateText
    Else
        GetStateText = "not installed"
    End If
End Function

Properties
See Also

Properties

CheckPoint

The SCM-reported dwCheckPoint value. Long.

Services in a Pending state (StartPending, StopPending, PausePending, ContinuePending) report a periodically-incrementing CheckPoint so the SCM can tell a slow-but-progressing transition from a hung service. The package’s ServiceManager.ReportStatus auto-increments the field while the service is in a pending state and resets it to 0 on Running or Stopped.

ControlsAccepted

A bitmask of SERVICE_ACCEPT_* flags indicating which control codes the service has told the SCM it accepts. Long.

Note

Although the underlying SCM field is a flag bitmask, the property is typed plain Long in this release rather than as a typed enum. The bit values follow the Win32 documented constants — SERVICE_ACCEPT_STOP (1), SERVICE_ACCEPT_PAUSE_CONTINUE (2), SERVICE_ACCEPT_SHUTDOWN (4), SERVICE_ACCEPT_PARAMCHANGE (8), SERVICE_ACCEPT_NETBINDCHANGE (16), SERVICE_ACCEPT_HARDWAREPROFILECHANGE (32), SERVICE_ACCEPT_POWEREVENT (64), SERVICE_ACCEPT_SESSIONCHANGE (128), SERVICE_ACCEPT_PRESHUTDOWN (256), and so on.

CurrentState

The SCM-reported dwCurrentState value. Long.

Note

The property is typed plain Long in this release rather than as ServiceStatusConstants. The numeric values do match the enum (e.g. 4 is vbServiceStatusRunning), so a cast such as CType(state.CurrentState, ServiceStatusConstants) recovers typed access if needed. For display purposes CurrentStateText is usually more convenient.

CurrentStateText

A human-readable rendering of CurrentState. String.

The mapping:

State value	Text
vbServiceStatusContinuePending	`CONTINUING`
vbServiceStatusPausePending	`PAUSING`
vbServiceStatusPaused	`PAUSED`
vbServiceStatusRunning	`RUNNING`
vbServiceStatusStartPending	`STARTING`
vbServiceStatusStopPending	`STOPPING`
vbServiceStatusStopped	`STOPPED`

Any unrecognised state value is rendered as UNKNOWN STATE (<n>).

ExitCode

The SCM-reported dwWin32ExitCode value. Long.

For a normally-stopped service this is 0 (NO_ERROR); for a service that stopped due to an error, this is either a Win32 error code or the sentinel ERROR_SERVICE_SPECIFIC_ERROR (1066) — in which case the real code is in ServiceSpecificExitCode.

Flags

The SCM-reported dwServiceFlags value. Long.

Only one bit is currently documented — SERVICE_RUNS_IN_SYSTEM_PROCESS (1), set when the service is hosted inside the system process (services.exe).

ProcessId

The OS process ID hosting the service, or 0 if the service is not running. Long.

Useful for cross-referencing against Task Manager or tasklist /svc output, and as a quick “is the service alive?” check that avoids string-comparing CurrentStateText.

ServiceSpecificExitCode

The SCM-reported dwServiceSpecificExitCode value. Long.

Meaningful only when ExitCode equals ERROR_SERVICE_SPECIFIC_ERROR (1066); otherwise the field is 0 and should be ignored. Services that report custom error codes through ServiceManager.ReportStatus populate this field through the package’s machinery.

Type

The SCM-reported service type. ServiceTypeConstants.

The value the SCM has on file for the service, typically tbServiceTypeOwnProcess or tbServiceTypeShareProcess for twinBASIC services.

WaitHint

The SCM-reported dwWaitHint value in milliseconds. Long.

Only meaningful while the service is in a Pending state — it is the upper-bound estimate the service has told the SCM the pending transition will take. The SCM uses CheckPoint and WaitHint together to decide whether a pending service is making progress.