I installed a windows service using installUtil.exe.
After updating the code I used installUtil.exe again to install the service w/o uninstalling the original version first.
When I now try to uninstall the service, installUtil.exe completes the uninstall successfully, but the service still appears.
If I try to change its properties, I receive the message 'service is marked for deletion'.
How can I force the deletion (preferrably w/o restarting the server)?
well, you can use SC.EXE to delete any windows Service forcefully if un-install doesnt removes by any chance.
sc delete <Service_Name>
Read more on "MS Techno Blogging" Deleting Services Forcefully from Services MMC
Just in case this answer helps someone: as found here, you might save yourself a lot of trouble running Sysinternals Autoruns as administrator. Just go to the "Services" tab and delete your service.
It did the trick for me on a machine where I didn't have any permission to edit the registry.
I am late, but would like to add an alternative, which may look strange, but I didn't see another way:
As I install my Windows Services in a CI process each night, I needed something that works all the time and is completely automated. For some reason, the services were always marked for deletion for a long time (5 minutes or more) after uninstalling them. Therefore, I extended the reinstallation batch script to make sure that the service is really deleted (simplified version):
REM Stop the service first
net stop My-Socket-Server
REM Same as installutil.exe, just implemented in the service
My.Socket.Server.exe /u
:loop1
REM Easy way to wait for 5 seconds
ping 192.0.2.2 -n 1 -w 5000 > nul
sc delete My-Socket-Server
echo %date% %time%: Trying to delete service.
if errorlevel 1072 goto :loop1
REM Just for output purposes, typically I get that the service does not exist
sc query My-Socket-Server
REM Installing the new service, same as installutil.exe but in code
My.Socket.Server.exe /i
REM Start the new service
net start My-Socket-Server
What I can see, is that the service is marked for deletion for about 5 minutes (!) until it finally goes through. Finally, I don't need any more manual interventions. I will extend the script in the future so that something happens after a certain time (e.g. notification after 30 minutes).
Also make sure that there are no instances of the executable still active (perhaps one that might have been running, for whatever reason, independently of the service).
I was opening and closing MMC and looking for the PIDs to kill - but when looking in process explorer there were a couple of extant processes running from a forgotten scheduled batch. Killed them. Job done.
There are plenty of forum questions in that subject.
I have found the answer in windows api. You don't need to restart the computer after uninstalling the service. You have to call:
BOOL WINAPI CloseServiceHandle(
SC_HANDLE hSCObject
);
That closes the handle of the service. On windows 7 it solved my problem. I do:
I use the following PowerShell cobbled together from a few places for our Octopus Deploy instances when TopShelf messes up or a service fails for some other reason.
$ServiceName = 'MyNaughtyService'
$ServiceName | Stop-Service -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
# We tried nicely, now KILL!!!
$ServiceNamePID = Get-Service | Where { $_.Name -eq $ServiceName} # If it was hung($_.Status -eq 'StopPending' -or $_.Status -eq 'Stopping') -and
$ServicePID = (Get-WmiObject Win32_Service | Where {$_.Name -eq $ServiceNamePID.Name}).ProcessID
Stop-Process $ServicePID -Force
