net start / net stop #win, #cmd

net start & stop commands

net start [serviceName]

and

net stop [serviceName]

tell you whether they have succeeded or failed pretty clearly. For example

U:\>net stop alerter
The Alerter service is not started.

More help is available by typing NET HELPMSG 3521.

If running from a batch file, you have access to the ERRORLEVEL of the return code. 0 indicates success. Anything higher indicates failure.

As a bat file, error.bat:

@echo off
net stop alerter
if ERRORLEVEL 1 goto error
exit
:error
echo There was a problem
pause

The output looks like this:

U:\>error.bat
The Alerter service is not started.

More help is available by typing NET HELPMSG 3521.

There was a problem
Press any key to continue . . .

Return Codes

 - 0 = Success
 - 1 = Not Supported
 - 2 = Access Denied
 - 3 = Dependent Services Running
 - 4 = Invalid Service Control
 - 5 = Service Cannot Accept Control
 - 6 = Service Not Active
 - 7 = Service Request Timeout
 - 8 = Unknown Failure
 - 9 = Path Not Found
 - 10 = Service Already Running
 - 11 = Service Database Locked
 - 12 = Service Dependency Deleted
 - 13 = Service Dependency Failure
 - 14 = Service Disabled
 - 15 = Service Logon Failure
 - 16 = Service Marked For Deletion
 - 17 = Service No Thread
 - 18 = Status Circular Dependency
 - 19 = Status Duplicate Name
 - 20 = Status Invalid Name
 - 21 = Status Invalid Parameter 
 - 22 = Status Invalid Service Account
 - 23 = Status Service Exists
 - 24 = Service Already Paused

Return Codes:

    The NET command does not return the documented Win32_Service class return codes (Service Not Active,Service Request Timeout, etc) and for many errors will simply return Errorlevel 2.
    
However:

You can use the NET START command and then check the ERRORLEVEL environment variable, e.g.

net start [your service]
if %errorlevel% == 2 echo Could not start service.
if %errorlevel% == 0 echo Service started successfully.
echo Errorlevel: %errorlevel%