Check if a Windows service exists and delete in PowerShell - 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?

Answer 1

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

Answer 2

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"

Answer 3

If you just want to check service existence:
if (Get-Service "My Service" -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue)
{
"service exists"
}

Answer 4

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
}

Answer 5

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'

Answer 6

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}

Answer 7

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

Answer 8

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
}
}

Answer 9

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."}
}

Answer 10

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
}

Answer 11

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
}

Answer 12

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)}

Answer 13

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.

Answer 14

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

Answer 15

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