How-to fix the Downloaded Maps Broker (MapsBroker) warning

For those who often deploy Windows Server 2016; must have noticed the anoying warning in Server Manager about a stopped service named Downloaded Maps Broker (MapsBroker). Although this service is set to ‘Automatic (Delayed Start)’ it does not start automatically as shown in the following screen-capture:  

This service is only started on-demand by application accessing downloaded maps. This annoying but rather small issue is already there for a very long time. It often causes confusion and I can’t understand why Microsoft still hasn’t fixed this. Anyway, luckily there is an easy fix that works flawlessly. At deployment of new environments it has became a routine for me to fix this. The solution (work-around) is as following:

   You have to set the service MapsBroker to ‘manual’ startup.

I would like to note that this issue is being discussed on TechNet Forums and on several blogs. Most people suggest to set the service to ‘disabled’. I do not recommend. In case the MapsBroker service needs to be started on-demand by another service or application, it is unable to. To overcome this issue you have to set it to ‘manually’. There are multiple ways to acomplish this:

• With a Group Policy Object within Active Directory
• With a PowerShell command
• Manually

Group Policy Objects (GPO)

Within a large environemnt with Active Directory it is always best to configure a GPO (Group Policy Object). I prefer to use the a GPO Extension to apply it only once. So that server administrators are able to enabled it anytime they want, in case this service is required to be up-and-running. And at least you get rid of this warning.

    Computer Configuration > Preferences > Control Panel Settings > Services

See the following example:

PowerShell

In case you want to fix it on a single server, you can use the following PowerShell syntax:

    Get-Service -Name MapsBroker | Set-Service -StartupType Manual -Confirm:$false

Manually

The last but least way is set it manually. By going to the services console (services.msc) and set the startup setting of the MapsBroker service to ‘Manual’.

I hope this was informative to you.