OpenSCManagerA function (winsvc.h)

Article
02/09/2023

Establishes a connection to the service control manager on the specified computer and opens the specified service control manager database.

Syntax

SC_HANDLE OpenSCManagerA(
  [in, optional] LPCSTR lpMachineName,
  [in, optional] LPCSTR lpDatabaseName,
  [in]           DWORD  dwDesiredAccess
);

Parameters

[in, optional] lpMachineName

The name of the target computer. If the pointer is NULL or points to an empty string, the function connects to the service control manager on the local computer.

[in, optional] lpDatabaseName

The name of the service control manager database. This parameter should be set to SERVICES_ACTIVE_DATABASE. If it is NULL, the SERVICES_ACTIVE_DATABASE database is opened by default.

[in] dwDesiredAccess

The access to the service control manager. For a list of access rights, see Service Security and Access Rights.

Before granting the requested access rights, the system checks the access token of the calling process against the discretionary access-control list of the security descriptor associated with the service control manager.

The SC_MANAGER_CONNECT access right is implicitly specified by calling this function.

Return value

If the function succeeds, the return value is a handle to the specified service control manager database.

If the function fails, the return value is NULL. To get extended error information, call GetLastError.

The following error codes can be set by the SCM. Other error codes can be set by the registry functions that are called by the SCM.

Return code	Description
ERROR_ACCESS_DENIED	The requested access was denied.
ERROR_DATABASE_DOES_NOT_EXIST	The specified database does not exist.

Remarks

When a process uses the OpenSCManager function to open a handle to a service control manager database, the system performs a security check before granting the requested access. For more information, see Service Security and Access Rights.

If the current user does not have proper access when connecting to a service on another computer, the OpenSCManager function call fails. To connect to a service remotely, call the LogonUser function with LOGON32_LOGON_NEW_CREDENTIALS and then call ImpersonateLoggedOnUser before calling OpenSCManager. For more information about connecting to services remotely, see Services and RPC/TCP.

Only processes with Administrator privileges are able to open a database handle that can be used by the CreateService function.

The returned handle is only valid for the process that called the OpenSCManager function. It can be closed by calling the CloseServiceHandle function.

Examples

For an example, see Changing a Service's Configuration.

Note

The winsvc.h header defines OpenSCManager as an alias that automatically selects the ANSI or Unicode version of this function based on the definition of the UNICODE preprocessor constant. Mixing usage of the encoding-neutral alias with code that is not encoding-neutral can lead to mismatches that result in compilation or runtime errors. For more information, see Conventions for Function Prototypes.

Requirements

Requirement	Value
Minimum supported client	Windows XP [desktop apps only]
Minimum supported server	Windows Server 2003 [desktop apps only]
Target Platform	Windows
Header	winsvc.h (include Windows.h)
Library	Advapi32.lib
DLL	Advapi32.dll

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