Restart on prem windows service

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Posted on by JasonMcMahan

Good day,

I have recently begun to start looking more closely at power automate.

Specifically I was attempting to determine if it is possible to restart a windows service for an on premise server when an email is received.

For example, say an email is received that the widget service has failed and needs restarted.

I would like to grab the service name and the server it is on then from the email, then connect to the on premise server (through an on premise data gateway i assume) and perform a restart of the widget service.

Any help of suggestion to read, learn and or look into i would greatly appreciate it.

THank you very much.

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Expiscornovus 33,189 Most Valuable Professional on at

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Hi @JasonMcMahan,

I would use a combination of a cloud flow (for the e-mail is received part) and a desktop flow (for accessing the server and perform a restart).

For the e-mail trigger you could use When a new email arrives (V3) (if the email box is in fact hosted in Office 365).

Office 365 Outlook - Connectors | Microsoft Docs

With the Run a flow built with Power Automate for desktop action you can trigger a desktop flow on a specific machine Desktop flows - Connectors | Microsoft Docs

With desktop flows you can use an action like start a Windows service:

Windows services - Power Automate | Microsoft Docs

The biggest challenge is probably routing it to the correct machine. Normally the desktop flow just uses the machine or a random machine of the machine group which was set in the connection of the Run a flow built with Power Automate for desktop action. However, you want to connect to a specific machine.

You might want to look into the new Direct to machine connection option for this.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-automate/desktop-flows/manage-machines#trigger-a-desktop-flow-to-run-on-your-machine

I can imagine it would be possible with one parent flow which routes to the correct child flows and in those child flows you can use the direct to machine connection. Haven't tried this myself though 😁

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JasonMcMahan 2 on at

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Thank you for the fast reply, it seems in my mind i was over simplifying it.
I mistakenly thought the data gateway could be used as a gateway from the cloud to perform actions against resource on premise. Such as services, processes and such of an internal machine.
Am i understanding I would need to install desktop flow on every on premise server i want to perform actions against?

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Expiscornovus 33,189 Most Valuable Professional on at

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Hi @JasonMcMahan,

It depends a bit on the tasks. I was looking at the Windows Services action question. Those actions would be executed on the machine itself. In that case you want to register these individual machines, https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-automate/desktop-flows/manage-machines#register-a-new-machine

However, in your scenario you can probably also use (remote) PowerShell actions in a desktop flow on one server to restart things on other servers (if PowerShell remoting is enabled). In that case these kind of tasks can be executed from one machine. Again, thinking out loud, haven't tried it 😄

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