How to delete Services from windows

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).

 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:

Important Note: Once you delete a service, it’s gone, and it’s going to be a pain to add it back. Use with caution.

Deleting a Service

The first thing you’ll need to do is identify the name of the service, so open up Services through the start menu or control panel, and then find the service in the list that you want to delete.

You’ll need to open up a command prompt, and if you are using Windows 7 or Vista you’ll need to right-click the command prompt and choose Run as Administrator. We’ll use the sc command to actually do the work.

The syntax used to delete a service is this:

sc delete ServiceName

Now if you use the F5 key to refresh your Services list, you’ll see that the service is gone.

I’ve found that using this technique (carefully) can make your Services list a lot more useful, since you don’t have to weed through dozens of items you will never have enabled.

Note: You should think long and hard before deleting a service, because it’s very difficult to get them back once they are gone.