SC Delete Not Deleting Service

Question

So I'm running Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard and am trying to delete a service with 'sc delete <myservicesname>' and the command seems to execute without complaint, however, when I check the services list after running the command, the service is still there.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

sc in PowerShell is Set-Content; so if you are running in PowerShell, you likely have a file called 'delete' with your service's name as its content

If this is indeed your issue, use

sc.exe delete servicename

Answer 2

Service can be marked for deletion, but may not be deleted immediately, since something holds it. See this answer for possible holders: https://stackoverflow.com/a/20565337/1943849

In my case, I just closed the Computer Management window

Answer 3

Make sure to stop the service first then run the sc delete command. It will take care of closing any running process.