>>>>>>Check the events viewer
>>>>>
>>>>>Can I get some more information? I don't see an Events Viewer directly associated with Foxpro, and most other references seem to be general to 3rd-party products.
>>>>
>>>>The events viewer is part of the Windows OS. Try Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Event Viewer
>>>
>>>Found it, but I don't see anything in the log that seems relevent to why the service would not stop. Do you know what he might have been trying to get me to see?
>>
>>The Events Viewer will list errors or other information messages related to the OS environment. I think he was suggesting a review of the log files in the Event Viewer to see if anything obvious was being mentioned related to the problem.
>>
>>Also, go Administrative Tools - > Services. Go to the service in question. right click and go to Properties. Check the Log On tab. What user is the service logging on with? Also check the dependencies tab. Is this service dependent on any other service? Are there other services that may depend on this service?
>
>Could the issue be the fact that when I run the service with no parameter, the service name is EMPS. When running as "Admin" using a parameter, it starts as EMPS also. Makes sense since they are the same EXE, but starting the "Admin" version it is also listed as EMPS in the processes list. Maybe it gets confused trying to stop the first EMPS when the one trying to stop it is also EMPS. That make any sense at all? After I run the "Admin" version, there are two EMPS services running. The first is non-visual and the second runs a form. This worked fine when I had them separated into two EXEs, but it was suggested that I compbine them into the same one. Now I can't seem to stop the non-visual service from the second instance.

I did not follow the entire thread Jay but (1) you need to have sufficient rights to stop a service and you may not have them, hence my question about what user is the service starting as, and (2) if there are two instances running under different credentials then certainly that can be a problem since how can the system know which one you want to stop?