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How To Delete/Remove Services In Windows XP and Vista

by | Wednesday, 29th Apr 2009 | 24 Comments | Share

Users can usually uninstall applications from their computers quite easily, however the same cannot be said for Windows services, of course you can disable a service, but the entry for it may still remain.

If you are looking for a way to completely delete a service in Windows XP and Vista, you are in the right place.

In this post we will see the steps for deleting a Windows service completely, rather than just disabling it.

Note: You should always delete services in safe mode, lest it causes you any problem, you may also want to create system restore points, just in case something goes wrong, check out a tool that will allow you to create system restore points with a single click.

Step 1: Press Start > Run and type in services.mscwithout the quotes and hit the Enter key.

Step 2: In the Services applet, find the service that you want to delete permanently, right click it and click on the Properties from the menu.

service_properties

Step 3: In the properties window, find the name of the service and copy it to your clipboard.

copy_service_name

You may also want to stop the service, if it is running, this will kill all the running processes for it.

Step 4: Open a command prompt, by going to Start > Run and type in cmdwithout the quotes and hit the Enter key.

Once a command prompt has opened up, type the command sc delete service name without the quotes, replace service name, with the name of the service you copied in step 3.

delete_services_from_command_prompt

Once a service has been deleted you should see a message saying [SC] DeleteService SUCCESS, this should mean that the service has been deleted, to ensure that, just click on the refresh button in the services applet and confirm that the service has been deleted.

These are the only steps you require to delete services in Windows XP and , you do not require to install or download additional softwares to do it.

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I am the editor-in-chief and owner of Techie Buzz. I love coding and have contributed to several open source projects in the past. You can know more about me and my projects by visiting my Personal Website.I am also a social networking enthusiast and can be found active on twitter, you can follow Keith on twitter @keithdsouza. You can click on my name to visit my Google+ profile.

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  1. Eric Wright on December 15th, 2009 at 9:03 am #

    Yeah, right…

    I deleted the Bonjour Service (because it sucks with linksys routers locking up)

    Next I tried to remove the service and I copy the service name and issue the command without these quotes "sc delete Bonjour Service" which is exactly what it is listed as in the services control panel….

    So, how can the services control panel tell me it has one name and deny it when I try to remove the service?

    The long name for the service is showing as "##Id_String1.6844F930_1628_4223_B5CC_5BB94B879762##" and it's description is the same string.

    Also, how in the world did you highlight the "Service Name" in the above picture that happens to be the Bonjour Service?

    The picture at: http://cache.techie-buzz.com/images/stories/HowTo…

    I can't cut and paste like that in XP Pro SP3… Did you highlight that with a paint program?

    Maybe I should look in the registry to see if there's a way to remove the service there, since there's no way it can run without it's executables and support files I already deleted.

    And in case you wonder, I tried the removal logged in as Administrator, as well as my regular user account.

    Thanks for any help,

    Eric

  2. vk on January 17th, 2010 at 8:44 pm #

    i dont have nothing, but services contains a service named 'MyService1'. while deleting i got a message 'The Specified Service does not exist as an installed service'

    I am unable to install again.

    Help me to Delete & install Again.

  3. Pat on February 23rd, 2010 at 3:16 pm #

    Oh, put quotes " " around the name of the service if it contains a space in the name. Like this:

    sc delete "delete me service"

    That worked for me.

  4. Tom S on March 4th, 2010 at 11:29 am #

    Keith,

    Thanks for this. I am not a techie and did not know how to delete a service.

    My delete failed. It told me "Open Sevice FAILED 1060. The specified service does not exist as an installed service." But getPlus(R) Helper is listed in the services list. Help! What now?

    Thanks,

    Tom

    • Tom S on March 4th, 2010 at 11:33 am #

      Never mind. Just saw Pat's instruction in his message and that worked. Thanks to Keith and Pat both.

      Tom

    • Armand Yano on April 14th, 2010 at 9:05 pm #

      use the the you selected to delete on services.msc seen on executable tab.

      ex: c:/sc delete EHttpSrv

      Hope you get a Success message.

      • Armand Yano on April 14th, 2010 at 9:09 pm #

        I mean use the selected to delete on services.msc seen on executable tab.

  5. Armand Yano on April 14th, 2010 at 9:01 pm #

    Thanks Dude, it works!!!

    Addtl info: You may see the right services to delete on path to executable tab (). example dos command prompt: c:sc delete EHttpSrv

    Greetings and More Power!
    Armand from Philippines
    email: armand.yano@yahoo.com

    • nk on August 5th, 2010 at 8:08 pm #

      I cant delete the eset service entry. it says oper service failed 1060 the specified service does not exist as an installed service

  6. Rich on August 11th, 2010 at 3:05 pm #

    Use the DOS command:
    sc query state= all | find "NAME"
    You'll see a list of service names and display names… find the service name of the service to be axed. Then run:
    sc delete "your service name"
    with "your service name" replaced with the actual name of the service to be deleted

    • keihtan on December 21st, 2011 at 10:50 am #

      man, thx u very much, that is exactly what I needed, finally I just get rid of nasty service installed by some virus ;-)

  7. mahesh on April 27th, 2011 at 4:28 am #

    A required entry in the registry is missing or an attempt to write to the registry failed. am getting this error message when i click on properties.anybody help me plz…………

  8. Nagendra on April 28th, 2011 at 7:44 am #

    Thank you very much.
    With the steps provided here, i am able to delete the unnecessary services.

    Thanks a lot for your help.

  9. amit on April 29th, 2011 at 6:55 am #

    Thanks a log

    You saved the day… :)

  10. Dave on May 30th, 2011 at 1:08 pm #

    Command

    sc delete eventlog

    It says Delete Success.

    But when I reboot , Crashes my system and then my system gets into recovery/restore mode.

    Why is it so ????

    • Christopher King on July 26th, 2011 at 11:09 am #

      The EventLog service is a system service — used, not surpisingly, to write to the eventlog — and should not be deleted.

  11. Mahesh on August 10th, 2011 at 3:31 am #

    thanks a lot and very well explained :)

  12. Michael Szczepaniak on August 24th, 2011 at 2:19 pm #

    When I try this I get:

    ‘cs’ is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.

  13. Syed Moiz Quadri on December 31st, 2011 at 4:10 am #

    very helpful procedure you gave to me thanks for that one God bless you dude

  14. Steve F on February 7th, 2012 at 11:20 am #

    Your tip saved me time and effort. Thanks!

  15. Anitha on February 23rd, 2012 at 12:37 am #

    This link is very useful.. Thanks for the Information:)

  16. Kuldeep on April 2nd, 2012 at 3:06 pm #

    thnx alot for such a nice guidence.