Start or Stop Workstation service from command line (CMD)

Workstation service enables access to network shares. If this service is not running we can’t access any SMB shares from the machine. We can start the service from services management console(Services.msc). We can start workstation service from command prompt also using the below command. On Vista and Windows 7 you need to run this command from elevated administrator command prompt. Otherwise you will get access denied error like below.

C:\>net start workstation
System error 5 has occurred.
Access is denied.

In case if you get error as in the example below you need to first enable the service on the machine.

C:\Documents and Settings\administrator>net start workstation
System error 1058 has occurred.

The service cannot be started, either because it is disabled or because it has no enabled devices associated with it.

To Enable workstation service:

sc config lanmanworkstation start= demand

In the above command you can use any of the options {boot, system, auto or demand} to enable the service.

To disable the service you need to run the following command.

sc config lanmanworkstation start= disabled

To stop workstation service:

net stop workstation