How to force uninstallation of windows service

Question

I installed a windows service using installUtil exe    After updating the code I used installUtil exe again to install the service w o uninstalling the original version first   When I now try to uninstall the service  installUtil exe completes the uninstall successfully  but the service still appears    If I try to change its properties  I receive the message  service is marked for deletion     How can I force the deletion  preferrably w o restarting the server

User · Accepted Answer

One thing that has caught me out in the past is that if you have the services viewer running then that prevents the services from being fully deleted  so close that beforehand

User · Answer

It is also worth noting that this   sc delete  ServiceName    does not work in PowerShell  sc is an alias for the cmdlet Set-Content in PowerShell  You need to do   sc exe delete  ServiceName

User · Answer

I know this isn t going to help  but it might help someone in the future   I ve just had the same problem  closing and re-opening the services manager removed both the entry from the registry and completed the uninstall of the service   Previous to that  refreshing the services manager hadn t helped

User · Answer

sc delete sericeName   Just make sure the service is stopped before doing this  I have seen this work most times  There are times where I have seen windows get stuck on something and it insists on a reboot

User · Answer

This worked for me   a   Get-WmiObject Win32 Service   Where-Object     Name -eq  psexesvc    a Delete

User · Answer

Have you try stopping the service before calling uninstall  I had this problem randomly  Sometime I could remove it without restarting  My guess is that it has to do with the service still running

User · Answer

Just in case this answer helps someone  as found here  you might save yourself a lot of trouble running Sysinternals Autoruns as administrator  Just go to the  Services  tab and delete your service   It did the trick for me on a machine where I didn t have any permission to edit the registry

User · Answer

There are plenty of forum questions in that subject   I have found the answer in windows api  You don t need to restart the computer after uninstalling the service  You have to call    BOOL WINAPI CloseServiceHandle    SC HANDLE hSCObject      That closes the handle of the service  On windows 7 it solved my problem  I do    stop service close handle uninstall service    wait 3 sec    copy new exe to the directory    install the service    start service   close handle

User · Answer

I use the following PowerShell cobbled together from a few places for our Octopus Deploy instances when TopShelf messes up or a service fails for some other reason    ServiceName    MyNaughtyService   ServiceName   Stop-Service -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue   We tried nicely  now KILL     ServiceNamePID   Get-Service   Where      Name -eq  ServiceName    If it was hung    Status -eq  StopPending  -or    Status -eq  Stopping   -and  ServicePID    Get-WmiObject Win32 Service   Where     Name -eq  ServiceNamePID Name   ProcessID Stop-Process  ServicePID -Force

User · Answer

It is also worth noting that this   sc delete  ServiceName    does not work in PowerShell  sc is an alias for the cmdlet Set-Content in PowerShell  You need to do   sc exe delete  ServiceName

User · Answer

Unfortunately  you need to restart the server   That should remove the  deleted  service

User · Answer

Unfortunately  you need to restart the server   That should remove the  deleted  service

User · Answer

I use the following PowerShell cobbled together from a few places for our Octopus Deploy instances when TopShelf messes up or a service fails for some other reason    ServiceName    MyNaughtyService   ServiceName   Stop-Service -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue   We tried nicely  now KILL     ServiceNamePID   Get-Service   Where      Name -eq  ServiceName    If it was hung    Status -eq  StopPending  -or    Status -eq  Stopping   -and  ServicePID    Get-WmiObject Win32 Service   Where     Name -eq  ServiceNamePID Name   ProcessID Stop-Process  ServicePID -Force

User · Answer

Unfortunately  you need to restart the server   That should remove the  deleted  service

User · Answer

Refreshing the service list always did it for me   If the services window is open  it will hold some memory of it existing for some reason   F5 and I m reinstalling again

User · Answer

I am late  but would like to add an alternative  which may look strange  but I didn t see another way   As I install my Windows Services in a CI process each night  I needed something that works all the time and is completely automated  For some reason  the services were always marked for deletion for a long time  5 minutes or more  after uninstalling them  Therefore  I extended the reinstallation batch script to make sure that the service is really deleted  simplified version    REM Stop the service first net stop My-Socket-Server  REM Same as installutil exe  just implemented in the service My Socket Server exe  u   loop1     REM Easy way to wait for 5 seconds     ping 192 0 2 2 -n 1 -w 5000  gt  nul     sc delete My-Socket-Server     echo  date   time   Trying to delete service      if errorlevel 1072 goto  loop1  REM Just for output purposes  typically I get that the service does not exist sc query My-Socket-Server  REM Installing the new service  same as installutil exe but in code My Socket Server exe  i  REM Start the new service net start My-Socket-Server   What I can see  is that the service is marked for deletion for about 5 minutes     until it finally goes through  Finally  I don t need any more manual interventions  I will extend the script in the future so that something happens after a certain time  e g  notification after 30 minutes

User · Answer

There are plenty of forum questions in that subject   I have found the answer in windows api  You don t need to restart the computer after uninstalling the service  You have to call    BOOL WINAPI CloseServiceHandle    SC HANDLE hSCObject      That closes the handle of the service  On windows 7 it solved my problem  I do    stop service close handle uninstall service    wait 3 sec    copy new exe to the directory    install the service    start service   close handle

User · Answer

Also make sure that there are no instances of the executable still active  perhaps one that might have been running  for whatever reason  independently of the service     I was opening and closing MMC and looking for the PIDs to kill - but when looking in process explorer there were a couple of extant processes running from a forgotten scheduled batch  Killed them  Job done

User · Answer

The following will work without restarting the machine    Search the Registry   HKEY LOCAL MACHINE for  lt  Your Service Name    both keys and values  Set  Legacy  value to 0

User · Answer

sc delete sericeName   Just make sure the service is stopped before doing this  I have seen this work most times  There are times where I have seen windows get stuck on something and it insists on a reboot

User · Answer

Close cmd and services window if opened  then start cmd again by right clicking and selecting run as administrator  If sc delete serviceName does not work or anything does not work  http   weblogs asp net avnerk archive 2007 09 05 windows-services-services-msc-and-the-quot-this-service-is-marked-for-deletion-quot-error aspx

User · Answer

The following will work without restarting the machine    Search the Registry   HKEY LOCAL MACHINE for  lt  Your Service Name    both keys and values  Set  Legacy  value to 0

User · Answer

Have you try stopping the service before calling uninstall  I had this problem randomly  Sometime I could remove it without restarting  My guess is that it has to do with the service still running

User · Answer

If you can not stop the service in Services  you can stop your windows service exe in Task Manager  After that  you can remove the service

User · Answer

If you can not stop the service in Services  you can stop your windows service exe in Task Manager  After that  you can remove the service

User · Answer

I know this isn t going to help  but it might help someone in the future   I ve just had the same problem  closing and re-opening the services manager removed both the entry from the registry and completed the uninstall of the service   Previous to that  refreshing the services manager hadn t helped

User · Answer

I am late  but would like to add an alternative  which may look strange  but I didn t see another way   As I install my Windows Services in a CI process each night  I needed something that works all the time and is completely automated  For some reason  the services were always marked for deletion for a long time  5 minutes or more  after uninstalling them  Therefore  I extended the reinstallation batch script to make sure that the service is really deleted  simplified version    REM Stop the service first net stop My-Socket-Server  REM Same as installutil exe  just implemented in the service My Socket Server exe  u   loop1     REM Easy way to wait for 5 seconds     ping 192 0 2 2 -n 1 -w 5000  gt  nul     sc delete My-Socket-Server     echo  date   time   Trying to delete service      if errorlevel 1072 goto  loop1  REM Just for output purposes  typically I get that the service does not exist sc query My-Socket-Server  REM Installing the new service  same as installutil exe but in code My Socket Server exe  i  REM Start the new service net start My-Socket-Server   What I can see  is that the service is marked for deletion for about 5 minutes     until it finally goes through  Finally  I don t need any more manual interventions  I will extend the script in the future so that something happens after a certain time  e g  notification after 30 minutes

User · Answer

Close cmd and services window if opened  then start cmd again by right clicking and selecting run as administrator  If sc delete serviceName does not work or anything does not work  http   weblogs asp net avnerk archive 2007 09 05 windows-services-services-msc-and-the-quot-this-service-is-marked-for-deletion-quot-error aspx

User · Answer

Also make sure that there are no instances of the executable still active  perhaps one that might have been running  for whatever reason  independently of the service     I was opening and closing MMC and looking for the PIDs to kill - but when looking in process explorer there were a couple of extant processes running from a forgotten scheduled batch  Killed them  Job done

User · Answer

well  you can use SC EXE to delete any windows Service forcefully if un-install doesnt removes by any chance   sc delete  lt Service Name gt    Read more on  MS Techno Blogging  Deleting Services Forcefully from Services MMC

User · Answer

You don t have to restart your machine  Start cmd or PowerShell in elevated mode   sc exe queryex  lt SERVICE NAME gt    Then you ll get some info  A PID number will show   taskkill  pid  lt SERVICE PID gt   f   Where  f is to force stop   Now you can install or launch your service

User · Answer

sc delete sericeName   Just make sure the service is stopped before doing this  I have seen this work most times  There are times where I have seen windows get stuck on something and it insists on a reboot

User · Answer

You can manually delete the registry key for your service  located  at HKLM SYSTEM CurrentControlSet Services  after that you won t see the service in service control manager  need to refresh or reopen to see the change   and you can reinstall the service as usual

User · Answer

Have you try stopping the service before calling uninstall  I had this problem randomly  Sometime I could remove it without restarting  My guess is that it has to do with the service still running

User · Answer

Unfortunately  you need to restart the server   That should remove the  deleted  service

User · Answer

Refreshing the service list always did it for me   If the services window is open  it will hold some memory of it existing for some reason   F5 and I m reinstalling again

User · Answer

Have you try stopping the service before calling uninstall  I had this problem randomly  Sometime I could remove it without restarting  My guess is that it has to do with the service still running

User · Answer

You don t have to restart your machine  Start cmd or PowerShell in elevated mode   sc exe queryex  lt SERVICE NAME gt    Then you ll get some info  A PID number will show   taskkill  pid  lt SERVICE PID gt   f   Where  f is to force stop   Now you can install or launch your service

User · Answer

This worked for me   a   Get-WmiObject Win32 Service   Where-Object     Name -eq  psexesvc    a Delete

User · Answer

well  you can use SC EXE to delete any windows Service forcefully if un-install doesnt removes by any chance   sc delete  lt Service Name gt    Read more on  MS Techno Blogging  Deleting Services Forcefully from Services MMC

User · Answer

You can manually delete the registry key for your service  located  at HKLM SYSTEM CurrentControlSet Services  after that you won t see the service in service control manager  need to refresh or reopen to see the change   and you can reinstall the service as usual

User · Answer

sc delete sericeName   Just make sure the service is stopped before doing this  I have seen this work most times  There are times where I have seen windows get stuck on something and it insists on a reboot

User · Answer

Just in case this answer helps someone  as found here  you might save yourself a lot of trouble running Sysinternals Autoruns as administrator  Just go to the  Services  tab and delete your service   It did the trick for me on a machine where I didn t have any permission to edit the registry

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