You can use this procedure to control whether the DNS Server service is running and able to respond to queries.

Membership in the Administrators group, or equivalent, is the minimum required to complete this procedure. Review details about using the appropriate accounts and group memberships at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=83477.

To start or stop a DNS server

  1. Open DNS Manager.

  2. In the console tree, click the applicable Domain Name System (DNS) server.

  3. On the Action menu, point to All Tasks, and then click one of the following:

    • To start the service, click Start.

    • To stop the service, click Stop.

    • To interrupt the service, click Pause.

  4. To stop and then automatically restart the service, click Restart.

Additional considerations

  • To open DNS Manager, click Start, point to Administrative Tools, and then click DNS.

  • After you pause or stop the service, on the Action menu, in All Tasks, you can click Resume to immediately resume service.

  • When the boot method of your server is configured to load zone data from the registry, changes are applied to DNS servers only when the DNS Server service is initialized again. In this case, if a DNS value is manually changed directly in the registry, the DNS Server service must always be restarted for the new value to be used.

Additional references

  • Remove a Server from DNS Manager
  • Pause or Resume a Zone