[powershell] Check if a Windows service exists and delete in PowerShell

I am currently writing a deployment script that installs a number of Windows services.

The services names are versioned, so I want to delete the prior Windows service version as part of the installs of the new service.

How can I best do this in PowerShell?

Adapted this to take an input list of servers, specify a hostname and give some helpful output

            $name = "<ServiceName>"
            $servers = Get-content servers.txt

            function Confirm-WindowsServiceExists($name)
            {   
                if (Get-Service -Name $name -Computername $server -ErrorAction Continue)
                {
                    Write-Host "$name Exists on $server"
                    return $true
                }
                    Write-Host "$name does not exist on $server"
                    return $false
            }

            function Remove-WindowsServiceIfItExists($name)
            {   
                $exists = Confirm-WindowsServiceExists $name
                if ($exists)
                {    
                    Write-host "Removing Service $name from $server"
                    sc.exe \\$server delete $name
                }       
            }

            ForEach ($server in $servers) {Remove-WindowsServiceIfItExists($name)}

More recent versions of PS have Remove-WmiObject. Beware of silent fails for $service.delete() ...

PS D:\> $s3=Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Service -Filter "Name='TSATSvrSvc03'"

PS D:\> $s3.delete()
...
ReturnValue      : 2
...
PS D:\> $?
True
PS D:\> $LASTEXITCODE
0
PS D:\> $result=$s3.delete()

PS D:\> $result.ReturnValue
2

PS D:\> Remove-WmiObject -InputObject $s3
Remove-WmiObject : Access denied 
At line:1 char:1
+ Remove-WmiObject -InputObject $s3
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : InvalidOperation: (:) [Remove-WmiObject], ManagementException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : RemoveWMIManagementException,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.RemoveWmiObject

PS D:\> 

For my situation I needed to be running 'As Administrator'

There's no harm in using the right tool for the job, I find running (from Powershell)

sc.exe \\server delete "MyService" 

the most reliable method that does not have many dependencies.

PowerShell Core (v6+) now has a Remove-Service cmdlet.

I don't know about plans to back-port it to Windows PowerShell, where it is not available as of v5.1.

Example:

# PowerShell *Core* only (v6+)
Remove-Service someservice

Note that invocation fails if the service doesn't exist, so to only remove it if it currently exists, you could do:

# PowerShell *Core* only (v6+)
$name = 'someservice'
if (Get-Service $name -ErrorAction Ignore) {
  Remove-Service $name
}

If you just want to check service existence:

if (Get-Service "My Service" -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue)
{
    "service exists"
}

One could use Where-Object

if ((Get-Service | Where-Object {$_.Name -eq $serviceName}).length -eq 1) { "Service Exists" }

I used the "-ErrorAction SilentlyContinue" solution but then later ran into the problem that it leaves an ErrorRecord behind. So here's another solution to just checking if the Service exists using "Get-Service".

# Determines if a Service exists with a name as defined in $ServiceName.
# Returns a boolean $True or $False.
Function ServiceExists([string] $ServiceName) {
    [bool] $Return = $False
    # If you use just "Get-Service $ServiceName", it will return an error if 
    # the service didn't exist.  Trick Get-Service to return an array of 
    # Services, but only if the name exactly matches the $ServiceName.  
    # This way you can test if the array is emply.
    if ( Get-Service "$ServiceName*" -Include $ServiceName ) {
        $Return = $True
    }
    Return $Return
}

[bool] $thisServiceExists = ServiceExists "A Service Name"
$thisServiceExists 

But ravikanth has the best solution since the Get-WmiObject will not throw an error if the Service didn't exist. So I settled on using:

Function ServiceExists([string] $ServiceName) {
    [bool] $Return = $False
    if ( Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Service -Filter "Name='$ServiceName'" ) {
        $Return = $True
    }
    Return $Return
}

So to offer a more complete solution:

# Deletes a Service with a name as defined in $ServiceName.
# Returns a boolean $True or $False.  $True if the Service didn't exist or was 
# successfully deleted after execution.
Function DeleteService([string] $ServiceName) {
    [bool] $Return = $False
    $Service = Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Service -Filter "Name='$ServiceName'" 
    if ( $Service ) {
        $Service.Delete()
        if ( -Not ( ServiceExists $ServiceName ) ) {
            $Return = $True
        }
    } else {
        $Return = $True
    }
    Return $Return
}

To delete multiple services in Powershell 5.0, since remove service does not exist in this version

Run the below command

Get-Service -Displayname "*ServiceName*" | ForEach-object{ cmd /c  sc delete $_.Name}

Combining Dmitri & dcx's answers I made this:

function Confirm-WindowsServiceExists($name)
{   
    if (Get-Service $name -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue)
    {
        return $true
    }
    return $false
}

function Remove-WindowsServiceIfItExists($name)
{   
    $exists = Confirm-WindowsServiceExists $name
    if ($exists)
    {    
        sc.exe \\server delete $name
    }       
}

Windows Powershell 6 will have Remove-Service cmdlet. As of now the Github release shows PS v6 beta-9

Source: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/microsoft.powershell.management/remove-service?view=powershell-6

To check if a Windows service named MySuperServiceVersion1 exists, even when you might not be sure of its exact name, you could employ a wildcard, using a substring like so:

 if (Get-Service -Name "*SuperService*" -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue)
{
    # do something
}

• For PowerShell versions prior to v6, you can do this:

  Stop-Service 'YourServiceName'; Get-CimInstance -ClassName Win32_Service -Filter "Name='YourServiceName'" | Remove-CimInstance
  

• For v6+, you can use the Remove-Service cmdlet.

Observe that starting in Windows PowerShell 3.0, the cmdlet Get-WmiObject has been superseded by Get-CimInstance.

For single PC:

if (Get-Service "service_name" -ErrorAction 'SilentlyContinue'){(Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Service -filter "Name='service_name'").delete()}

else{write-host "No service found."}

Macro for list of PCs:

$name = "service_name"

$list = get-content list.txt

foreach ($server in $list) {

if (Get-Service "service_name" -computername $server -ErrorAction 'SilentlyContinue'){
(Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Service -filter "Name='service_name'" -ComputerName $server).delete()}

else{write-host "No service $name found on $server."}

}