Understanding the ADDS service in the services console

·        Introduced in Windows Server 2012, the AD DS service can be stopped to perform certain maintenance operations without the need to reboot the domain controller into DSRM. The following operations can be performed   while the AD DS service is stopped :

·        Performing offline defragmentation of the ADDS database.

·        Moving the AD database files to another location.

·        Performing a nonauthoritative restore. However, in order to perform an authoritative restore, you still need to get to DSRM mode.