How to uninstall a windows service and delete its files without rebooting

Question

My current project involves deploying an upgraded  exe file that runs as a Windows Service   In order to overwrite the existing  exe with the new version  I currently need to    Stop the service Uninstall the service Reboot the system  so Windows releases it s hold on the file  Deploy the new  exe Reinstall the service Start the upgraded service    I d like to avoid the reboot  so that this can be a fully scripted automated upgrade   Is there any way to avoid rebooting   Maybe a command-line tool that will force Windows to give up it s death grip on the old  exe

User · Accepted Answer

sc delete  service name    will delete a service  I find that the sc utility is much easier to locate than digging around for installutil  Remember to stop the service if you have not already

User · Answer

Are you not able to stop the service before the update  and restart after the update  using the commands below   net stop  lt service name gt  net start  lt service name gt    Whenever I m testing deploying a service I m able to upload files without reinstalling as long as the service is stopped   I m not sure if the issue you are having is different

User · Answer

Should it be necessary to manually remove a service    Run Regedit or regedt32  Find the registry key entry for your service under the following key    HKEY LOCAL MACHINE SYSTEM CurrentControlSet Services Delete the Registry Key   You will have to reboot before the list gets updated in services

User · Answer

so Windows releases it s hold on the   file    Instead  do Ctrl Alt Del right after the Stop of the service and kill the  exe of the service  Than  you can uninstall the service without rebooting  This happened to me in the past and it solves the part that you need to reboot

User · Answer

so Windows releases it s hold on the   file    Instead  do Ctrl Alt Del right after the Stop of the service and kill the  exe of the service  Than  you can uninstall the service without rebooting  This happened to me in the past and it solves the part that you need to reboot

User · Answer

Both Jonathan and Charles are right    you ve got to stop the service first  then uninstall reinstall   Combining their two answers makes the perfect batch file or PowerShell script   I will make mention of a caution learned the hard way -- Windows 2000 Server  possibly the client OS as well  will require a reboot before the reinstall no matter what   There must be a registry key that is not fully cleared until the box is rebooted   Windows Server 2003  Windows XP and later OS versions do not suffer that pain

User · Answer

My batch file to stop and delete service   echo off title Service Uninstaller color 0A set blank  set service blank  start echo  amp echo  amp echo  SET  P service Enter the name of the service you want to uninstall     IF   service        ECHO Nothing is entered GoTo  start  cls echo  amp echo  amp echo We will delete the service   service  ping -n 5 -w 1 127 0 0 1 gt nul   net stop  service  ping -n 2 -w 1 127 0 0 1 gt nul sc delete  service  pause  end

User · Answer

My batch file to stop and delete service   echo off title Service Uninstaller color 0A set blank  set service blank  start echo  amp echo  amp echo  SET  P service Enter the name of the service you want to uninstall     IF   service        ECHO Nothing is entered GoTo  start  cls echo  amp echo  amp echo We will delete the service   service  ping -n 5 -w 1 127 0 0 1 gt nul   net stop  service  ping -n 2 -w 1 127 0 0 1 gt nul sc delete  service  pause  end

User · Answer

I had sort of the same problem as you   I have a system service that i want to uninstall and afterwards reinstall as part of an update   On certain systems this would not work without a reboot   The problem was that a call to DeleteService   would return ok  but the following call to CreateService   would tell me the service was still there  but marked for deletion  error code 1072    The registry would reflect that  since the subkey was still there  under HKLM System CurrentControlSet Services   but  DeleteFlag  was set to 1   From that point on  only a reboot could fix the situation   Some things that don t work    Using  sc delete   it had the same problems as I   The call would return ok  but the service was not really gone and still in the registry with DeleteFlag   1  Deleting the key in the registry   The Service Manager seems to keep a database in memory and the registry is just a copy of it for the next boot  Adding wait loops  waiting for  exe files to be ready to be overwritten  killing the process  etc    Closing handles to the service   Which ones     But here is what worked    I noticed in some articles here on stackoverflow that net exe has start stop features as well  I only knew of sc exe utility    And strangely enough  a  net stop svcname  plus a  sc delete svcname  worked   So net exe must do something I don t do   But net exe doesn t contain an import to ControlService    so how does it stop the service   I found out that net exe spawns net1 exe  but net1 exe doesn t import ControlService   as well   I used the great API Monitor utility   http   www rohitab com apimonitor   to see what net1 exe is doing  but it never called anything that looked promising   But then I saw that it imports NetServiceControl   from NETAPI32 DLL  that had at least  Service  in its name     MSDN says that this function is obsolete   Nevertheless  I found the prototype in LMSvc h and some parameter description here  http   cyberkinetica homeunix net os2tk45 srvfpgr 369 L2 NetServiceControlorN html    When you load NETAPI32 DLL and use NetServiceControl NULL  service name  3  0  0   3 is for SERVICE CTRL UNINSTALL  which is used to stop  the service is stopped afterwards   And it can be deleted and reinstalled afterwards without DeleteFlag or reboot   So it was never a problem of deleting  but of stopping the service properly   And NetServiceControl   does the trick   Sorry for the long post  but I thought it might help someone with similar problems    Just for reference  I use Win7 SP1 x64

User · Answer

I am using the InstallUtil exe packed with  NET Framework   The usage to uninstall is  InstallUtil   path to assembly with the installer classes   u so for example  installutil MyService HostService exe  u  The  u switch stands for uninstall  without it the util performs normal installation of the service  The utility stops the service if it is running and I never had problems with Windows keeping lock on the service files  You can read about other options of InstallUtil on MSDN   P S  if you don t have installutil in your path variable use full path like this  C  Windows Microsoft NET Framework v4 0 30319 InstallUtil exe  C  MyServiceFolder MyService HostService exe   u  or if you need 64bit version it can be found in  C  Windows Microsoft NET Framework64 v4 0 30319    The version number in path varies depending on  NET version

User · Answer

Are you not able to stop the service before the update  and restart after the update  using the commands below   net stop  lt service name gt  net start  lt service name gt    Whenever I m testing deploying a service I m able to upload files without reinstalling as long as the service is stopped   I m not sure if the issue you are having is different

User · Answer

As noted by StingyJack and mcbala  and in reference to comments made by Mike L  my experience is that on a Windows 2000 machine  when uninstalling   reinstalling  Net services   installutil  u  does require a reboot  even when the service was previously stopped   sc  delete   on the other hand  does not require a reboot - it deletes the service right away  as long as it is stopped    I have often wondered  actually  whether there is a good reason  installutil  u  requires a reboot    Is  sc  delete  actually doing something wrong   leaving something hanging

User · Answer

I had sort of the same problem as you   I have a system service that i want to uninstall and afterwards reinstall as part of an update   On certain systems this would not work without a reboot   The problem was that a call to DeleteService   would return ok  but the following call to CreateService   would tell me the service was still there  but marked for deletion  error code 1072    The registry would reflect that  since the subkey was still there  under HKLM System CurrentControlSet Services   but  DeleteFlag  was set to 1   From that point on  only a reboot could fix the situation   Some things that don t work    Using  sc delete   it had the same problems as I   The call would return ok  but the service was not really gone and still in the registry with DeleteFlag   1  Deleting the key in the registry   The Service Manager seems to keep a database in memory and the registry is just a copy of it for the next boot  Adding wait loops  waiting for  exe files to be ready to be overwritten  killing the process  etc    Closing handles to the service   Which ones     But here is what worked    I noticed in some articles here on stackoverflow that net exe has start stop features as well  I only knew of sc exe utility    And strangely enough  a  net stop svcname  plus a  sc delete svcname  worked   So net exe must do something I don t do   But net exe doesn t contain an import to ControlService    so how does it stop the service   I found out that net exe spawns net1 exe  but net1 exe doesn t import ControlService   as well   I used the great API Monitor utility   http   www rohitab com apimonitor   to see what net1 exe is doing  but it never called anything that looked promising   But then I saw that it imports NetServiceControl   from NETAPI32 DLL  that had at least  Service  in its name     MSDN says that this function is obsolete   Nevertheless  I found the prototype in LMSvc h and some parameter description here  http   cyberkinetica homeunix net os2tk45 srvfpgr 369 L2 NetServiceControlorN html    When you load NETAPI32 DLL and use NetServiceControl NULL  service name  3  0  0   3 is for SERVICE CTRL UNINSTALL  which is used to stop  the service is stopped afterwards   And it can be deleted and reinstalled afterwards without DeleteFlag or reboot   So it was never a problem of deleting  but of stopping the service properly   And NetServiceControl   does the trick   Sorry for the long post  but I thought it might help someone with similar problems    Just for reference  I use Win7 SP1 x64

User · Answer

If in  net   I m not sure if it works for all windows services    Stop the service  THis may be why you re having a problem   InstallUtil -u  name of executable  Installutil -i  name of executable  Start the service again      Unless I m changing the  service s public interface  I often deploy upgraded versions of my services without even unistalling reinstalling    ALl I do is stop the service  replace the files and restart the service again

User · Answer

I am using the InstallUtil exe packed with  NET Framework   The usage to uninstall is  InstallUtil   path to assembly with the installer classes   u so for example  installutil MyService HostService exe  u  The  u switch stands for uninstall  without it the util performs normal installation of the service  The utility stops the service if it is running and I never had problems with Windows keeping lock on the service files  You can read about other options of InstallUtil on MSDN   P S  if you don t have installutil in your path variable use full path like this  C  Windows Microsoft NET Framework v4 0 30319 InstallUtil exe  C  MyServiceFolder MyService HostService exe   u  or if you need 64bit version it can be found in  C  Windows Microsoft NET Framework64 v4 0 30319    The version number in path varies depending on  NET version

User · Answer

Both Jonathan and Charles are right    you ve got to stop the service first  then uninstall reinstall   Combining their two answers makes the perfect batch file or PowerShell script   I will make mention of a caution learned the hard way -- Windows 2000 Server  possibly the client OS as well  will require a reboot before the reinstall no matter what   There must be a registry key that is not fully cleared until the box is rebooted   Windows Server 2003  Windows XP and later OS versions do not suffer that pain

User · Answer

Both Jonathan and Charles are right    you ve got to stop the service first  then uninstall reinstall   Combining their two answers makes the perfect batch file or PowerShell script   I will make mention of a caution learned the hard way -- Windows 2000 Server  possibly the client OS as well  will require a reboot before the reinstall no matter what   There must be a registry key that is not fully cleared until the box is rebooted   Windows Server 2003  Windows XP and later OS versions do not suffer that pain

User · Answer

Should it be necessary to manually remove a service    Run Regedit or regedt32  Find the registry key entry for your service under the following key    HKEY LOCAL MACHINE SYSTEM CurrentControlSet Services Delete the Registry Key   You will have to reboot before the list gets updated in services

User · Answer

If in  net   I m not sure if it works for all windows services    Stop the service  THis may be why you re having a problem   InstallUtil -u  name of executable  Installutil -i  name of executable  Start the service again      Unless I m changing the  service s public interface  I often deploy upgraded versions of my services without even unistalling reinstalling    ALl I do is stop the service  replace the files and restart the service again

User · Answer

so Windows releases it s hold on the   file    Instead  do Ctrl Alt Del right after the Stop of the service and kill the  exe of the service  Than  you can uninstall the service without rebooting  This happened to me in the past and it solves the part that you need to reboot

User · Answer

Are you not able to stop the service before the update  and restart after the update  using the commands below   net stop  lt service name gt  net start  lt service name gt    Whenever I m testing deploying a service I m able to upload files without reinstalling as long as the service is stopped   I m not sure if the issue you are having is different

User · Answer

so Windows releases it s hold on the   file    Instead  do Ctrl Alt Del right after the Stop of the service and kill the  exe of the service  Than  you can uninstall the service without rebooting  This happened to me in the past and it solves the part that you need to reboot

User · Answer

Are you not able to stop the service before the update  and restart after the update  using the commands below   net stop  lt service name gt  net start  lt service name gt    Whenever I m testing deploying a service I m able to upload files without reinstalling as long as the service is stopped   I m not sure if the issue you are having is different

User · Answer

As noted by StingyJack and mcbala  and in reference to comments made by Mike L  my experience is that on a Windows 2000 machine  when uninstalling   reinstalling  Net services   installutil  u  does require a reboot  even when the service was previously stopped   sc  delete   on the other hand  does not require a reboot - it deletes the service right away  as long as it is stopped    I have often wondered  actually  whether there is a good reason  installutil  u  requires a reboot    Is  sc  delete  actually doing something wrong   leaving something hanging

User · Answer

If in  net   I m not sure if it works for all windows services    Stop the service  THis may be why you re having a problem   InstallUtil -u  name of executable  Installutil -i  name of executable  Start the service again      Unless I m changing the  service s public interface  I often deploy upgraded versions of my services without even unistalling reinstalling    ALl I do is stop the service  replace the files and restart the service again

User · Answer

Both Jonathan and Charles are right    you ve got to stop the service first  then uninstall reinstall   Combining their two answers makes the perfect batch file or PowerShell script   I will make mention of a caution learned the hard way -- Windows 2000 Server  possibly the client OS as well  will require a reboot before the reinstall no matter what   There must be a registry key that is not fully cleared until the box is rebooted   Windows Server 2003  Windows XP and later OS versions do not suffer that pain

User · Answer

If in  net   I m not sure if it works for all windows services    Stop the service  THis may be why you re having a problem   InstallUtil -u  name of executable  Installutil -i  name of executable  Start the service again      Unless I m changing the  service s public interface  I often deploy upgraded versions of my services without even unistalling reinstalling    ALl I do is stop the service  replace the files and restart the service again

[windows] How to uninstall a windows service and delete its files without rebooting

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