Removing unwanted Windows Service

Removing a service from Windows should be easy, but sometimes, it can get stuck in use, or stubborn.

I was recently removing XAMPP from my machine as it was no longer something that I was using, and one of my services refused to be removed.

The reason for this was that I was starting to run everything from portable installations instead, but I digress.

I ran into a problem while uninstalling XAMP, as I had seemingly removed all remnants of XAMP, yet MySQL seemed to remain.

Bringing up the Task Manager and viewing the services tab, I could see that the one I wanted to remove name was mysql.

Viewing the Services window via the Administrative Tools, I could start or stop the service, but no option to remove it.

Manually removing service

To remove a service manually, open up the Command Prompt with Administrative privileges, and then type sc delete mysql. Replace mysql with the name of the one you want to remove.

You should get a confirmation of the deletion.