Hi PJ,
Here is a possible solution using your command shell idea and the output from 'net stop'

use strict;

my @order; 
my @results = `net stop mssqlserver /N`;

foreach(@results){
     if(/^ /){
          push(@order,$_)
     }
}
foreach(reverse(@order)){
     print("Stopping $_\n");
     system("net stop \"$_\"");
}

#...... reverse to start again....
[download]

This is an initial hack. Any ideas for improvement are welcome!!
Bye!