If you are a fan of tweaking your arrangement and disabling services, you lot might find that over time your Windows Services list becomes large and unwieldy. It's piece of cake plenty to delete a Windows service using the Control Prompt.

RELATED: Should Y'all Disable Windows Services to Speed Up Your PC?

A big alert, though. When you delete a service, it's gone—and services can exist a real pain to get back. We actually don't recommend deleting services at all, unless you're dealing with a very particular state of affairs like cleaning upwards later a program uninstalled improperly or rooting out a malware infestation. Typically, only disabling a service is enough, particularly if all you're really trying to practice is tweak your system operation (which probably won't work equally well as you might promise, anyway).  That said, if you do need to delete a service, you lot but need to find the actual name of that service and so issue a single command from the Control Prompt.

The techniques we're covering hither should piece of work in pretty much whatsoever version of Windows—from XP all the fashion up through 10.

Step 1: Find the Name of the Service Yous Desire to Delete

The outset matter you'll need to do is place the total proper noun of the service yous want to delete. In our example, nosotros're using the RetailDemo service—a curious thing that activates a subconscious command for changing Windows into a retail service style (and pretty much erasing all personal docs and resetting your PC to it's default state), so it's actually a good example of a service you might not desire around.

Hit Starting time, type "services" into the search box, and and so click the "Services" result.

In the "Services" window, ringlet down and find the service you lot're subsequently. Correct-click the service and cull the "Backdrop" control.

In the service'due south properties window, copy (or write down) the text to the correct of the "Service name" entry.

When you take the service's name, you tin become ahead and close the properties window and the "Services" window.

Step Two: Delete the Service

At present that y'all have the name of the service you want to delete, you'll need to open up the Command Prompt with administrative privileges to do the deleting.

Click Kickoff, and and then type "cmd" into the search box. Right-click the "Control Prompt" result, and then choose the "Run as ambassador" command.

At the Control Prompt, you'll utilize the post-obit syntax:

sc delete                ServiceName              

So, to delete the "RetailDemo" service we're using in our example, nosotros'd type the following text, and then hit Enter:

sc delete RetailDemo

Note: If the service you're deleting has any spaces in the name, you'll have to enclose the name in quotes when you type the command.

Now, if you use the F5 cardinal to refresh your Services listing, you lot'll see that the service is gone.


Deleting a service in Windows is pretty piece of cake, merely we'd once again like to circumspection yous to think long and difficult earlier deleting a service, because it'southward very difficult to go them back once they're gone.