Thanks for the input. Because of the fact that I started with Perl, I decided to be stubborn and finish in Perl, even though the Sysinternals suite might've made more sense.

Here's what I ended up with:

#!/usr/bin/perl

use v5.14;
use strict;
use warnings;

use DBI;
use Win32::Service;

##
# Hostname of server where this script is being run.
#
my $hostname = `hostname`;
chomp $hostname;

##
# Reference to anonymous array returned by GetStatus.
#
my $w32ServiceStatus = {};

##
# Win32 API service status constants.
#
use constant {
    SERVICE_STOPPED            => hex('0x00000001'),
    SERVICE_START_PENDING      => hex('0x00000002'),
    SERVICE_STOP_PENDING       => hex('0x00000003'),
    SERVICE_RUNNING            => hex('0x00000004'),
    SERVICE_CONTINUE_PENDING   => hex('0x00000005'),
    SERVICE_PAUSE_PENDING      => hex('0x00000006'),
    SERVICE_PAUSED             => hex('0x00000007'),
};

##
# Additional script constants.
#
use constant {
    SLEEP_INTERVAL             => 15,              # Time to sleep bet
+ween tries (sec.).
    MAX_WAIT_TIME              => 15,              # Max time to wait 
+for service to stop (min.).
    SERVICE_NAME               => 'MY_SERVICE',    # Service name.
};

######################################################################
+#
# Get the current status of the service and stop it, if running.
#
Win32::Service::GetStatus('',SERVICE_NAME,$w32ServiceStatus);
if ($w32ServiceStatus->{CurrentState} == SERVICE_RUNNING) {
    ##
    # Process ID.
    #
    my $pid = -999;
    
    ##
    # WMI database handle object.
    #
    my $dbh = DBI->connect('dbi:WMI:');
    
    ##
    # WMI statement handle object.
    #
    my $sth = $dbh->prepare(
            sprintf ("SELECT * FROM Win32_Service WHERE Name = '%s'",
                    SERVICE_NAME));
    $sth->execute();
    if (my $row = $sth->fetchrow()) {
        $pid = $row->ProcessID;
    }

    printf("Attempting to stop %s on $hostname...\n",SERVICE_NAME);
    
    ##################################################################
+#
    # Stop the service.
    #
    Win32::Service::StopService('',SERVICE_NAME)
           or die sprintf("Unable to stop %s on %s: %s\n",
                    SERVICE_NAME,$hostname,$!);
    printf("%s on %s stopping.\n",SERVICE_NAME,$hostname);
    
    ##################################################################
+#
    # Continue to wait until the process is fully stopped.
    #
    my $stopCount = 0;
    while ($pid > 0 && $stopCount < (60 / SLEEP_INTERVAL * MAX_WAIT_TI
+ME)) {
        sleep SLEEP_INTERVAL;
        $sth->execute();
        if (my $row = $sth->fetchrow()) {
            $pid = $row->ProcessID;
        }
        $stopCount++;
    }
    
    ##################################################################
+#
    # If the time taken to stop exceeds the maximum wait time, then
    # error out.
    #
    if ($stopCount < (60 / SLEEP_INTERVAL * MAX_WAIT_TIME)) {
        printf("%s stopped on %s.\n",SERVICE_NAME,$hostname);
    } else {
        die sprintf("Unable to stop %s on %s: %s\n",
                SERVICE_NAME,$hostname,$!);
    }
}

######################################################################
+#
# Service is not running.
#
else {
    printf("%s is not currently running on %s.\n",SERVICE_NAME,$hostna
+me);
}

######################################################################
+#
# ...do whatever we're going to do before restarting the service...
#

######################################################################
+#
# Restart the service, if it was running to start with.
#
if ($w32ServiceStatus->{CurrentState} == SERVICE_RUNNING) {
    printf("Attempting to start %s on %s.\n",SERVICE_NAME,$hostname);
    Win32::Service::StartService('',SERVICE_NAME)
            or die sprintf("Unable to start %s on %s.\n",SERVICE_NAME,
+$hostname);
    printf("%s on %s started.\n",SERVICE_NAME,$hostname);
}
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