🛈 This solution applies to all those services, with which you’re facing Error 1061.

If you’re not able to start or stop services in your Windows 11/10, this article might help you. Recently, while stopping the Network Location Awareness service, we came around following message:

Error 1061 The Service Cannot Accept Control Messages At This Time
Windows could not stop the Network Location Awareness service on Local Computer. Error 1061: The service cannot accept control messages at this time.

Actually, while we tried to stopped Network Location Awareness service, we received error 1051 first. We fixed it using this guide:

Fix Error 1051: A Stop Control Has Been Sent To A Service Which Other Running Services Are Dependent On

However, while stopping the service in second instance failed with error 1061. If you’re also victim of this issue, here’s how we managed to fix this error.

Fix Error 1061: The service cannot accept control messages at this time in Windows 11/10

1. Open Services snap-in by running services.msc command.

2. Try to identify the dependency services for the service with which you’re facing the issue. Then attempt to stop them. In our case, the dependency service which Network List Service, also failed to stop with same error. It is the real culprit which prevented stopping of Network Location Awareness service.

Error 1061 The Service Cannot Accept Control Messages At This Time

3. So we double clicked on the service and noted down its Service name.

Error 1061 The Service Cannot Accept Control Messages At This Time

4. Then we opened Task Manager and switched to Services tab. Now we were able to locate the service here with its Service name obtained from previous step. Now we noted down its process ID (PID).

Error 1061 The Service Cannot Accept Control Messages At This Time

5. Next, we switched to Details tab on Task Manager and searched for PID we got in previous step. Now we’re able to locate the host which was carrying the problematic process. We selected this host and hit End task button.

Error 1061 The Service Cannot Accept Control Messages At This Time

6. A confirmation prompt immediately appeared to block/confirm us for this operation. We hit End process button then.

Error 1061 The Service Cannot Accept Control Messages At This Time

7. This finally stopped the problematic process and we confirmed the same from Services tab.

Error 1061 The Service Cannot Accept Control Messages At This Time

We also checked the Services snap-in and re-confirmed that the service was stopped.

So in this way, you can stop any service which is giving your error 1061.

Video fix

To demonstrate above solution, you can checkout this video:

That’s it! 

16 Comments

Add your comment

  • Manoj Kumar

    Thanks a lot Kapil. This article helps me a nagging issue of Error 1061 while installing NordVPN. It was bugging me for days. Thanks a ton man.

  • Kapil Arya

    ^^ Glad to help!

  • vali

    Thanks a lot

  • Kapil Arya

    ^^ Glad to help!

  • joe bernanners

    Nice! Thank you. Quick tip, instead of looking at PIDs you can just right click a service and go to details. It will take you to the details tab with the host process highlighted.

  • Kapil Arya

    ^^ Thanks joe for the tip 😊

  • x_sid

    The only working solution for restart FSRM with 1061 error. Thanks a lot!

  • Kapil Arya

    ^^ Happy to help 😊

  • Lawrence R

    Not working on Server 2022. Service restarts immediately with a new PID (even though its manual). Tried using SC STOP command as well no joy.

  • Tomas

    Dude! Thank you so Much! I’m a linux guy, but i have to deal with windows
    for certain things. Getting alot of the windows services shut down is part of being more secure!

  • Kapil Arya

    ^^ Glad to help Tomas 😎

  • Juan Pablo

    Very Helpful! Thanks!

  • Kapil Arya

    ^^ Welcome 🙏

  • E

    It didn’t work for me :(
    The service just restarted immidiately with a new pid. I have windows 10. What can I do?

  • MakeRobo

    By default services will restart three times. So when you kill it once you need to get the pid again (it will change) and kill it again. Then a third time. At that point is should not automatically restart.

  • MakeRobo

    That isn’t a fix by any stretch of the imagination,

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