My system has Windows 2003 Server on it. I recently did an uninstall of a pretty large attention. During the uninstall there was an error message saying some file was in use but then the rest of the uninstall seemed to go fine.

Afterwards I tried to delete the folder that housed the attention (the uninstall normally leaves some files behind in the folder) but a message kept popping up saying that these files may possibly not be removed as they were in use.

After banging my head against the wall I finally realized that there were two “services” still running that are associated with the program and were not removed , probably due to that error message, when I uninstalled. Once I stopped the services I was able to delete the folder.

Now, I can’t delete the services (don’t know how) from the services window and I do plot on re-installing the attention. Is my system hosed now? Would reinstalling the attention work?

Best answer:

Answer by kyrrian
Reinstalling will probably fix up the services. But if you’re like me, you want a clean slate before you give it another go.

Two methods for doing this — one through the registry, one through the command prompt.

In the registry, you can navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/ SYSTEM/ CurrentControlSet/ Services
Locate the service you want to get rid of, and delete its key. Done. You may want to stop the service first, since you won’t be able to once it’s gone (and you may not even be able to remove the service until it’s stopped). You might also want to check any filenames used in the key for the service, so that you can also remove any remaining files associated with the service.

You can also use the command line tool “sc” to delete a service (as well as a whole bunch of other things, like set it to manual/auto, stop/start it, etc).

C:>sc delete
DESCRIPTION:
Deletes a service entry from the registry.
If the service is running, or another process has an
open handle to the service, the service is austerely marked
for deletion.
USAGE:
sc delete [service name]

Excellent Luck! Be precise in the Registry. Always have a full backup of any computer you choose to poke at this way. =)

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