Check if a Windows service exists and delete in PowerShell

Question

I am currently writing a deployment script that installs a number of Windows services.

The services names are versioned, so I want to delete the prior Windows service version as part of the installs of the new service.

How can I best do this in PowerShell?

score 305 · Accepted Answer · edited Sep 02 '18 at 06:16

305

You can use WMI or other tools for this since there is no Remove-Service cmdlet until Powershell 6.0 (See Remove-Service doc)

For example:

$service = Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Service -Filter "Name='servicename'"
$service.delete()

Or with the sc.exe tool:

sc.exe delete ServiceName

Finally, if you do have access to PowerShell 6.0:

Remove-Service -Name ServiceName

edited Sep 02 '18 at 06:16

Thomas BDX

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answered Feb 11 '11 at 10:07

ravikanth

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2

You could also port the relevant part of this example to powershell (use the TransactedInstaller class): http://www.eggheadcafe.com/articles/20060104.asp However ravikanth's method is probably simpler. – JohnL Feb 11 '11 at 10:57
8

More recent versions of PS have Remove-WmiObject, and beware of silent fails for $service.delete() - have added another answer with formatted examples. – Straff May 03 '16 at 23:07
1

In short, most up to date version is to run Powershell As Administrator and run following: `$service = Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Service -Filter "Name='servicename'"` `$service | Remove-WmiObject` – BamboOS Jun 28 '17 at 14:53
For everyone's information, Straff's answer says "Beware of silent fails for `$service.delete()`" – sirdank Jul 06 '17 at 13:53
Starting in Windows PowerShell 3.0, the cmdlet Get-WmiObject has been superseded by Get-CimInstance. So nowadays you can do this: `Stop-Service 'servicename'; Get-CimInstance -ClassName Win32_Service -Filter "Name='servicename'" | Remove-CimInstance` – Rosberg Linhares Apr 19 '18 at 15:36
Here you can get up to date powershell https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell – midi Feb 03 '22 at 09:03

score 139 · Answer 2 · edited Jan 04 '23 at 21:29

139

There's no harm in using the right tool for the job, I find usign sc.exe (via PowerShell) to be the most reliable method with few dependencies.

Local:

sc.exe delete "MyService"

Remote server:

sc.exe \\server delete "MyService"

edited Jan 04 '23 at 21:29

Intrastellar Explorer

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answered Feb 11 '11 at 11:58

dcx

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The .exe part is very important as sc on its own is an alias for Set-Content. – Tom Robinson Aug 29 '13 at 14:13
@tjrobinson Thanks for that, I had omitted the `.exe` until I saw your comment. Now its working for me. – gwin003 Oct 22 '13 at 12:35
This is only useful if you have rights to the remote computer. If not (like in most secure environments) this won't work and you'll need something that supports passing in credentials – DaveStephens Nov 03 '15 at 15:48
The server name (`\\server`) is simply omitted if the service is local. – jpmc26 Mar 24 '17 at 21:15
1

this is better because it's more easily scriptable with `%` and `$_` – Chaim Eliyah Jul 19 '17 at 21:25
This was very helpful when I just needed to quickly clean out a local service installed on my laptop. Thank you! – Jay S Nov 14 '17 at 19:29

Dmitry Fedorkov · Answer 3 · 2014-04-01T09:09:19.513

94

If you just want to check service existence:

if (Get-Service "My Service" -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue)
{
    "service exists"
}

edited Apr 01 '14 at 09:09

answered Jun 13 '12 at 14:18

Dmitry Fedorkov

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score 22 · Answer 4 · edited Aug 23 '13 at 00:37

I used the "-ErrorAction SilentlyContinue" solution but then later ran into the problem that it leaves an ErrorRecord behind. So here's another solution to just checking if the Service exists using "Get-Service".

# Determines if a Service exists with a name as defined in $ServiceName.
# Returns a boolean $True or $False.
Function ServiceExists([string] $ServiceName) {
    [bool] $Return = $False
    # If you use just "Get-Service $ServiceName", it will return an error if 
    # the service didn't exist.  Trick Get-Service to return an array of 
    # Services, but only if the name exactly matches the $ServiceName.  
    # This way you can test if the array is emply.
    if ( Get-Service "$ServiceName*" -Include $ServiceName ) {
        $Return = $True
    }
    Return $Return
}

[bool] $thisServiceExists = ServiceExists "A Service Name"
$thisServiceExists

But ravikanth has the best solution since the Get-WmiObject will not throw an error if the Service didn't exist. So I settled on using:

Function ServiceExists([string] $ServiceName) {
    [bool] $Return = $False
    if ( Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Service -Filter "Name='$ServiceName'" ) {
        $Return = $True
    }
    Return $Return
}

So to offer a more complete solution:

# Deletes a Service with a name as defined in $ServiceName.
# Returns a boolean $True or $False.  $True if the Service didn't exist or was 
# successfully deleted after execution.
Function DeleteService([string] $ServiceName) {
    [bool] $Return = $False
    $Service = Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Service -Filter "Name='$ServiceName'" 
    if ( $Service ) {
        $Service.Delete()
        if ( -Not ( ServiceExists $ServiceName ) ) {
            $Return = $True
        }
    } else {
        $Return = $True
    }
    Return $Return
}

I decided to do a speed comparison between `Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Service -Filter "Name='$serviceName'"` and `Get-Service $serviceName -ErrorAction Ignore` (which completely hides the error if the service doesn't exist) for completeness. I expected the Get-WmiObject might be faster because it doesn't throw an error. I was very wrong. Running each in a loop 100 times, Get-Service took 0.16 seconds while Get-WmiObject took 9.66 seconds. So Get-Service is 60x faster than Get-WmiObject. — Simon Elms, Mar 27 '17 at 02:01

score 13 · Answer 5 · answered May 03 '16 at 23:13

More recent versions of PS have Remove-WmiObject. Beware of silent fails for $service.delete() ...

PS D:\> $s3=Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Service -Filter "Name='TSATSvrSvc03'"

PS D:\> $s3.delete()
...
ReturnValue      : 2
...
PS D:\> $?
True
PS D:\> $LASTEXITCODE
0
PS D:\> $result=$s3.delete()

PS D:\> $result.ReturnValue
2

PS D:\> Remove-WmiObject -InputObject $s3
Remove-WmiObject : Access denied 
At line:1 char:1
+ Remove-WmiObject -InputObject $s3
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : InvalidOperation: (:) [Remove-WmiObject], ManagementException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : RemoveWMIManagementException,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.RemoveWmiObject

PS D:\>

For my situation I needed to be running 'As Administrator'

score 13 · Answer 6 · answered Dec 01 '17 at 19:38

13

To delete multiple services in Powershell 5.0, since remove service does not exist in this version

Run the below command

Get-Service -Displayname "*ServiceName*" | ForEach-object{ cmd /c  sc delete $_.Name}

answered Dec 01 '17 at 19:38

Stuart Smith

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score 5 · Answer 7 · answered Oct 21 '14 at 19:55

5

One could use Where-Object

if ((Get-Service | Where-Object {$_.Name -eq $serviceName}).length -eq 1) { "Service Exists" }

answered Oct 21 '14 at 19:55

ShaneH

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score 4 · Answer 8 · answered Jan 24 '14 at 11:24

Combining Dmitri & dcx's answers I made this:

function Confirm-WindowsServiceExists($name)
{   
    if (Get-Service $name -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue)
    {
        return $true
    }
    return $false
}

function Remove-WindowsServiceIfItExists($name)
{   
    $exists = Confirm-WindowsServiceExists $name
    if ($exists)
    {    
        sc.exe \\server delete $name
    }       
}

score 4 · Answer 9 · answered Sep 22 '15 at 11:08

For single PC:

if (Get-Service "service_name" -ErrorAction 'SilentlyContinue'){(Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Service -filter "Name='service_name'").delete()}

else{write-host "No service found."}

Macro for list of PCs:

$name = "service_name"

$list = get-content list.txt

foreach ($server in $list) {

if (Get-Service "service_name" -computername $server -ErrorAction 'SilentlyContinue'){
(Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Service -filter "Name='service_name'" -ComputerName $server).delete()}

else{write-host "No service $name found on $server."}

}

score 3 · Answer 10 · answered Oct 25 '14 at 09:46

To check if a Windows service named MySuperServiceVersion1 exists, even when you might not be sure of its exact name, you could employ a wildcard, using a substring like so:

 if (Get-Service -Name "*SuperService*" -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue)
{
    # do something
}

mklement0 · Answer 11 · 2017-12-13T17:56:14.410

3

PowerShell Core (v6+) now has a Remove-Service cmdlet.

I don't know about plans to back-port it to Windows PowerShell, where it is not available as of v5.1.

Example:

# PowerShell *Core* only (v6+)
Remove-Service someservice

Note that invocation fails if the service doesn't exist, so to only remove it if it currently exists, you could do:

# PowerShell *Core* only (v6+)
$name = 'someservice'
if (Get-Service $name -ErrorAction Ignore) {
  Remove-Service $name
}

edited Dec 13 '17 at 17:56

answered Dec 13 '17 at 17:44

mklement0

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On PowerShell version 7, using the call to RemoteService gets the error "Remove-Service : The term 'Remove-Service' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program" – Pedro Vicente Jan 25 '22 at 09:26
@PedroVicente, note that In the context of remoting, even PowerShell 7 still targets _Windows PowerShell_ on remote machines - see [this answer](https://stackoverflow.com/a/58238482/45375). – mklement0 Jan 25 '22 at 14:50

score 2 · Answer 12 · answered Apr 29 '14 at 21:54

Adapted this to take an input list of servers, specify a hostname and give some helpful output

            $name = "<ServiceName>"
            $servers = Get-content servers.txt

            function Confirm-WindowsServiceExists($name)
            {   
                if (Get-Service -Name $name -Computername $server -ErrorAction Continue)
                {
                    Write-Host "$name Exists on $server"
                    return $true
                }
                    Write-Host "$name does not exist on $server"
                    return $false
            }

            function Remove-WindowsServiceIfItExists($name)
            {   
                $exists = Confirm-WindowsServiceExists $name
                if ($exists)
                {    
                    Write-host "Removing Service $name from $server"
                    sc.exe \\$server delete $name
                }       
            }

            ForEach ($server in $servers) {Remove-WindowsServiceIfItExists($name)}

score 2 · Answer 13 · answered Mar 01 '18 at 23:36

For PowerShell versions prior to v6, you can do this:

Stop-Service 'YourServiceName'; Get-CimInstance -ClassName Win32_Service -Filter "Name='YourServiceName'" | Remove-CimInstance

For v6+, you can use the Remove-Service cmdlet.

Observe that starting in Windows PowerShell 3.0, the cmdlet Get-WmiObject has been superseded by Get-CimInstance.

score 1 · Answer 14 · answered Nov 10 '17 at 07:06

1

Windows Powershell 6 will have Remove-Service cmdlet. As of now the Github release shows PS v6 beta-9

Source: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/microsoft.powershell.management/remove-service?view=powershell-6

answered Nov 10 '17 at 07:06

Gagan

49
6

score 1 · Answer 15 · answered Feb 14 '22 at 19:13

I know it's an old question but if someone is looking for one-liner:

On PS Version > 7.2

Wildcard search on the Name property

Get-Service *name* | Select-Object -First 1 | Remove-Service

Search the Display Name property

Get-Service -DisplayName "My Service Description" | Remove-Service

Check if a Windows service exists and delete in PowerShell

15 Answers15

Wildcard search on the Name property

Search the Display Name property

Linked