How to delete a windows service

October 13, 2006 · 1 min read

Recently, I was trying to delete a windows service. Normally it should not be necessary to manually delete a service. Uninstalling an application should remove its associated service (if any).

However, I installed some beta products and a service created by one of the applications was not removed automatically. Its very easy to remove a service from registry if you know the right path. Here is how I did that:

1. Run Regedit or Regedt32

2. Find the registry entry "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Services"

3. Look for the service there and delete it. You can look at the keys to know what files the service was using and delete them as well (if necessary).

alternatively, you can also use command prompt and delete a service using following command:

sc delete < SERVICE name>

or to create, simply type
sc create

Update: 
If you have space in the file path you need to use quotation marks ("). For example: 
sc create "MySQL" binpath= "C:\Archivos de programa\MySQL\MySQL Server 5.1\bin\mysqld.exe"

Thanks to Maya.

NOTE: You may have to reboot the system to get the list updated in service manager.

This article is part of the GWB Archives. Original Author: Shahedul Huq Khandkar

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