How to Delete a Windows Service in Vista or XP
If you are a fan of tweaking your system and disabling services, you might find that over time your Windows Services list becomes huge and unwieldy with a large number of services in the list that will never be enabled.
Instead of just disabling a service, you can alternatively completely delete the service. This technique can be especially helpful if you’ve installed some piece of software that doesn’t uninstall correctly, and leaves an item in the service list.
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 want to open up the properties by double-clicking on the service name, and then highlight the “Service name” value and copy it to the clipboard. This is what we’ll need to disable it.
You’ll need to open up a command prompt, and if you are using Windows 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
If your service name has spaces in it, you’ll need to wrap the service name in quotes, like this:
sc delete “Adobe LM Service”
Note that I’m not recommending deleting this particular service, it’s just an example.
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.
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Is there any way a list of common and safe services to disable could be added? I really get lost in all of them.
“services”does not exist in the start menu or the control panel in vista home premium.does it go by another term?where else could i look? thanks bob.
@bob
It should be under Administrative tools, or you can just type “services” into the start menu search box.
@The Geek
A very good article. Many times when a program is un-installed, the program’s service(s) may not be un-installed for various reasons. Another good tip on how to keep one’s computer operating system in a top notch clean condition.
@bob
its called “services” only on the english version of vista… on the german version its “dienste”. Dont know whats service in french or other languages, but you got the idea, i hope.
or you could use a little known, small footprint, program called pserv, now version 2.7
http://www.p-nand-q.com/download/pserv_cpl.html
@bob
You can make a shortcut of “services” in vista. Just right click on the desktop and select New > Shortcut. Type services.msc in “Type the location of the item” and hit next. Finally type any name such as “Services” (without quotes of course) and hit finish. You now have a shortcut of services in vista as well!
@olad
Thank You for the link.
A wonderful site with Great Tools and also some of the most Beautiful Pictures on the net.
That is a great way to remove them from the list.
One other thing is needed in case you find you want a deleted item back:
How to reinstall.
Thanks,
BRIAN
Brian:
Just do “sc create servicename”. To see how to use it, go to a command prompt and type “sc create /?” and it will give more info.
@SamCPP: That would work if you knew the exact service parameters of the one that was deleted but after deleting one there is no way to know that without checking out another machine.
@all: The above is one reason why I would recommend NOT deleting a service. It’s hard if not impossible to get it back if you need it again.
@jd2066
True – unless you know what you are doing, highly recommend not deleting a service but instead DISABLE it.
I completely agree with you guys, deleting a service isn’t usually recommended… the purpose of this article is simply to inform.
I added a stronger warning at the end of the article now.
Thanks for clarifying how hard it is to reinstall; it probably saved me from some real problems.
BRIAN
I would never delete a service. I recommend to sort out the services in 3 groups: automatic, disabled and manual by clicking one og two times at the column “Startup Time”.
I apologize: Click at the column “Startup Type”.
You can also get to Services thru Task Manager, in the Services tab. At the bottom of that page, click the UAC button.
If you want to be able to reinstall the service, and you’re confident with Regedit this is what I’ve done in the past:
Open regedit and browse to the following key
‘HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Services’
Find the service you want to delete, right click it and export to a .reg file. Give it a sensible name and remember where you save it. Then delete the key, and reboot.
If it works – that’s great. If not you can double click the file to reinstall the service to the registry.
** Messing with the registry can ruin your whole day. If anything above doesn’t make sense to you right now then you probably shouldn’t try this.**
Malc, thaks for that great tip!
Now I am back it the game.
It sure helpS to know exactly where in the registry the Service entries are located.
From there it is sure easy to back up and reinstall an entryif needed.
Thanks again.
BRIAN
You’re welcome! I found that tip on a google search myself – and it worked so I shared. Always good to spread the knowledge
Malc
That was too simple and effective.
Thanks.
This helped me to remove the Apache & MySql from my Vista Service list, just got an installation error.
Thanks
Thank you thank you thank you!!!