You're right, setting the Windows Service behavior to Manual is needed, but it's only half of the solution. The front-end startup behavior is governed by an entry placed in the Task Scheduler. You need to go there (you can search for it in the Start Menu, though I prefer to simply press Winkey+R and type taskschd.msc, then press Enter), dig around for the obviously named entry, and then either right-click it and choose Disable or view its Properties and change the Trigger to something more agreeable to you. Delightfully, this has no impact on starting the application normally thereafter. Wouldn't it be lovely if it knew enough to likewise kickstart the Windows Service when opened if it sees that it's stopped? A guy can dream…