Installing/Uninstalling Services in Windows 7: "Error 1001. The specified service has been marked for deletion"

I am currently developing a Windows Service in .NET 4.0, Visual Studio 2010, Windows 7-32bit. I have an installer project that does the installation for me. When I install the service, uninstall it, and try to install again, I get the following error:

Error 1001. The specified service has been marked for deleti开发者_高级运维on

In Windows XP, the problem was that the Services.msc was open. Closing this window would fix this problem.

However, with Windows 7, the only way I can fix this is to restart. I tried closing all my programs, but the problem still persists.

Does anyone know how to fix this without restarting?

Edit

I have not seen this problem since I stopped using the MSI installer, I use sc.exe instead, to install the services manually. I think this problem might be related to the combination of Visual Studio 2010 and MSI Installer Projects. However, I still don't know what was the culprit of this problem. It turns out that Process Explorer was the culprit.

I was facing the same problem on Windows 7 Ultimate edition. Installing the service after closing the Services.msc window solved my problem.

Short Answer

• Close Services.msc
• Close Process Explorer

Long Answer

After running into this problem again, I went to task manager and started shutting down processes. I eventually found the culprit, it was an internal corporate application used for managing software distribution. I shut it down, and the services were finally gone.

Update

I also found that sometimes Process Explorer needs to be closed for deleted services to disappear.

Have you considered using a different MSI authoring tool such as Windows Installer XML? The advantage is it doesn't hide Windows Installer's underlying ServiceInstall / ServiceControl panels saving you from the pain of reinventing the wheel with fragile out of process InstallUtil code.

I just solved this problem myself, in Windows 7.

FWIW, turns out you can go to the "Services" tab, right-click on the offending service, choose "Go To Process", and kill as required.

I had the same issue with my windows service on my deployment server.

Steps to solve problem:

• Go to install/uninstall wizard in windows
• Click on repair (which will fire custom action of setup)
• After repair try to uninstall that windows service
• it will uninstall perfectly

Hope this will work for you.