NET.exe

The NET Command is used to manage services as follows:

syntax
      NET START [service]
      NET STOP [service]
      NET PAUSE [service]
      NET CONTINUE [service] 
   
key
   [service] : The service name as shown in Control Panel, Services

To list the basic NT Services:

NET HELP SERVICES

To list the running NT Services:

NET START

If you try to start a service that is already running you will get this error message:

"The requested service has already been started. More help is available by typing NET HELPMSG 2182"

You can redirect and FIND this type of error as follows:

NET START alerter 2>&1|FIND "2182"
IF errorlevel 1 goto :s_started

Related commands:

MODE - Configure a system device
SC - Service Control
AT - Run a command on a remote machine (at a scheduled time)
WMIC SERVICE - WMI access to services.
List of Windows Services

Equivalent Linux BASH commands:

hostname - Print or set system name
mount - Mount a file system
ram - ram disk device
uname - Print system information