APC Data Service and APC UPS Service won't stay on automatic

[Anonymous user]

I'm using PowerChute personal edition v. 3.0.2 (Windows XP SP3) with a Back-UPS LS 700. Recently the battery failed and until I could replace it I wanted to stop the alerts. So I turned off the alerts in PowerChute but still got the popups frequently so I used a Control Panel applet "Startup" to prevent PowerChute from starting. The two PowerChute items I disabled with the Startup applet were "Display" and "APC UPS Status". I've used this before without issues. After installing the new battery I set everything back to normal but I got the message PowerChute cannot show the energy... etc. So I went to services, saw they weren't running, started them and also noticed they were set to Manual. So I changed them to Automatic and everything seemed OK. But now every time I reboot they are back on Manual and I have to start them manually every time. I tried reinstalling PowerChute but nothing changed. I haven't looked at the registry yet; I thought I'd see what I could find out about this before doing that. What I can't understand is why the services keep reverting to Manual after I set them to Automatic. That's what is causing the issue; they won't stay set.

Thanks for any help you can give me.

[BillP]

Hi,

Sorry to hear of the inconvenience. If you are comfortable with editing the system registry open it by going to start, run, and enter regedit.exe. Once in the registry go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, SYSTEM, CurrentControlSet, services. You will see 2 APC services APC Data Service and APC UPS Service. When you click on each the attributes of the service will be displayed. The value for Start attribute should be set to 2.

If the value is not 2 double click on the word Start and enter the value of 2 and click OK. Then close the registry and restart the system.

NOTE: You should make a back up of the registry before editing it.

Editing the system registry improperly can cause system damage. Schneider Electric is not responsible for any consequence caused by editing of the system registry.

Please review the corresponding Microsoft Kbase concerning the system registry before proceeding http://support.microsoft.com/kb/322756 for Windows XP

[Anonymous user]

Thanks. I just checked them and they are both set correctly (2) but I think that is because I had started them manually in Services and also set them back to Automatic (they had reverted to Manual as they always do). Next time I reboot I will check them before doing anything and see what I find. Something very strange is happening because once set to Automatic they should stay that way. APC Data Service depends on APC UPS Service, but APC UPS Service depends on nothing else, so it's not like some other service isn't starting and causing this. Anyway I will post here again about what I find.

[Anonymous user]

It is still reverting to Manual. Setting it to Automatic also changes the registry setting to (2) but on reboot it reverts back to Manual (3). Setting it with regedit does the same. I have no idea why it is doing this. I ran a virus scan and also a scan with Malwarebytes and both are negative. This all happened after I stopped PowerChute while waiting for a new battery but I have uninstalled and reinstalled PowerChute with no improvement. Starting the services manually, everything works fine.

[BillP]

Hi,

There must be something on the system that is editing the setting because PowerChute by default (when installed) is set to automatic and there is nothing in the design that would change the registry after the fact. I would suggest contacting Microsoft but they stopped supporting XP in 2014. 

To combat the issue you could set the registry setting to Automatic (Delayed Start) to see if the services start once other services have started. The services will be started roughly 2 minutes after all other services have been started. Another option is to set to manual and write a script that will run once the system starts that will start the services.

[Anonymous user]

I'm not sure if I'm doing the right thing and I can't remember how it was set or if it was, but I've set up the Windows native UPS settings. There was an icon on it that said services not running and after I set it up it changed to running (though I had already started them manually). It doesn't seem to have any effect on PowerChute and I do think it was set up in some way in the past. I don't know what to set the com port to because this uses USB but it doesn't seem to matter. I'm thinking this will make the services start. I'll see next time I reboot, tomorrow.

[Anonymous user · Accepted solution]

On 1/25/2017 11:21 AM, Aaron said:

I'm not sure if I'm doing the right thing and I can't remember how it was set or if it was, but I've set up the Windows native UPS settings. There was an icon on it that said services not running and after I set it up it changed to running (though I had already started them manually). It doesn't seem to have any effect on PowerChute and I do think it was set up in some way in the past. I don't know what to set the com port to because this uses USB but it doesn't seem to matter. I'm thinking this will make the services start. I'll see next time I reboot, tomorrow.

This was the solution.