Is it possible to enable or start a disabled local windows service from command prompt in Windows XP?

To set a service's startup type, use sc.exe (one of the many underrated built-in tools):

sc config servicename start= auto

(don't forget the space after the equal sign)

That's assuming you want it set to auto, for manual, use "demand" instead of "auto"

As for starting a service, there's 2 common ways:

net start servicename

or

sc start servicename

Such things are also very easily scripted (especially using PowerShell), and there's tons of 3rd party utils for this kind of stuff too

thanks never knew of the sc command.

had to use services.msc MMC to configure the service startup type