30

I would like to do this because I have a half installed service because of installation failure which is just there, non-functioning.

How can I delete the Windows service using the command line?

random
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Anil Namde
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3 Answers3

39

NOTE: You'll likely need an elevated command prompt (right click => "Run as Administrator") to execute this command

the sc command is what you want, specifically sc delete

C:\Users\Jeff>sc delete
DESCRIPTION:
        Deletes a service entry from the registry.
        If the service is running, or another process has an
        open handle to the service, the service is simply marked
        for deletion.
USAGE:
        sc  delete [service name]
Community
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Jeff Atwood
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    If you're in powershell, you'll want to make sure to type sc.exe because sc in powershell gets you the Set-Content cmdlet which will quietly look like it might have worked. – Andrew Sep 09 '15 at 16:00
14

We need to stop the service before deleting it from the Registry:

sc stop [Service name]  
sc delete [service name]

Run Command prompt as an administrator and execute above commands.

Enclose the service name in double quotes if it contains spaces.

I say Reinstate Monica
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CSharp
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    Just as an fyi, sc stop might not be finished stopping when sc delete runs, which can cause problems. It's not a common problem, but some services take a while to wind down. I'm not sure if I've run into this problem at straight commandline, but I definitely have when invoking service removal APIs for a couple a languages. – kayleeFrye_onDeck Jan 21 '17 at 00:27
-1

Simply put quotation marks between any service name that contain spaces C:\WINDOWS\system32>sc delete "Your Ugly Service"

Ahmed Adel
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  • It would have been better to suggest an edit to one of the existing answers to include the helpful information about double-quoting service names with spaces. – I say Reinstate Monica May 16 '18 at 02:33