3 Ways to Enable or Disable DNS Client Service in Windows 10

DNS stands for Domain name system that translates domain names to IP addresses and vice versa. And DNS client service plays an important role in Windows computer, that caches the resolved IP addresses. Also kept the length of time the resolved host IP in the local cache depends on the Time to Live (TTL) timeout. So that when you next time load a webpage the DNS resolves the domain name quickly to access web page faster. Basically, the DNS client service is set to start automatically when Windows starts. But if due to any reason the service not started, stuck not responding state you may fail to access web pages. And start to restart the service help to fix the problem. Here 4 different ways to enable disable DNS client service on windows 10, 8.1 and 7.

How to Start restart DNS Client service windows 10

Windows allows different ways to start and manage Windows services include DNS client service, here different ways.

Start DNS client service Windows services console

The easy and simplest way to manage windows services is the Windows services console.

• Press Windows + R keyboard shortcut,
• Type servcies.msc and ok to open Windows services console.
• scroll down and locate the DNS client service.
• Right click and select start or stop to enable/Disable the service.

To make DNS client service to start automatically at windows startup:

• Right click and DNS client service, select properties,
• Here change the startup type Automatic,

DNS client service greyed out windows 10

But sometimes users report the DNS client service is greyed out, and unable to start the DNS client service.

To short out this issue:

• On start, menu Search type regedit and select registry editor.
• Navigate HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\Dnscache
• Locate the Start DWORD key and change its value from 2 (Automatic) to 4 (Disabled)
• Close everything, And restart windows.
• Now again open the Windows service console and start the service.

Start DNS client service command line

• Open the command prompt as administrator,
• Type command net stop dnscache and press enter key to stop the DNS client service,
• Or type command net start dnscache and press the enter key to start the DNS client service.
• To change its startup type Automatic Use command below:

“REG add “HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\dnscache” /v Start /t REG_DWORD /d 2 /f”

Change the value 3 to manual start and value 4 to disable at startup.

Start DNS client service Using System configuration

Also, you can use windows system configuration to start and manage windows services.

• Press Windows + R, type msconfig and hit the enter key,
• This will open the system configuration window,
• Move to the services tab, and Locate DNS Client from the available services.
• If you wish to Disable DNS Client Service, untick the checkbox of the same.
• And To keep the service enabled, simply click on the checkbox to keep the tick mark.
• That’s all Click Apply, then OK button and restart windows to make changes effective.