Need to remove a faulty service

[GothicFires]

I have never been one of those people who hated microsoft... until now.

I have managed to fuck up not 1 but two window 7 home 64 bit o/s to where I cannot install the software I want to install  >:(

It's custom software, I doubt anyone has ever heard of it and if you have I don't want to know.  However it runs on SQL 2005 which is what I have amazingly managed to fuck up. So I'm trying to fix just one computer at the moment. I have fucked around enough with it to discover that I have a sql 2005 instance stuck in services that does not exist. I have uninstalled sql so many times your head would spin. It will install with the base instance but when the software I need to install tries it freaks out with a 'can't start instance' because it can't install the instance because the computer already think's it's there.

just in case I got confusing with my rant and ramble, here is the picture. I have covered up part of the service name because it had the software title in it


If someone knows where in the deep bowels of the o/s I need to go to get rid of it, I would be most grateful.

[Machete]

try start menu --> control panel --> Programs and features

[GothicFires]

edit... sorry... wrong reply

I have installed an uninstalled the program (sql2005) many times. I once worked in technical support for a software company. I am beyond the simple stuff.

[Machete]

Okay.  I can't help you then.

[Autumn Sativus]

You may need to find out if there are any files running that are attached to that instance. But basically I would just go ahead and boot into safemode and use your command line to delete whatever the responsible files are.

If you can boot into a Linux live distro you could also delete the offending files pretty easily this way but you'll need to know how to do that, I know not everyone is comfy with Linux.

(You may need to do some probing about what's going on with the uninstall and what's still attached that's preventing it.)

Anyway, that's what I would do. Maybe it will work for you.

[Vekseid]

It's specifically listing itself as part of the EzParts software package, not Microsoft SQL Server 2005 itself.

[GothicFires]

sheesh i didn't even notice the program name  listed there on the side :-[.

the installer for the program will install sql 2005 if it is not on the computer but will install a separate instance for the program. If you do an uninstall on sql 2005 from add/remove programs the uninstall wizard will give you an option to uninstall one instance at a time. So after ezparts is installed if i wanted to remove sql 2005 I would have to uninstall it twice.

That said, you can access every instance of sql 2005 from the management studio. It's like having multiple servers but on one computer.

I don't have access to Linux to even begin thinking about that root and my experience with it is limited to someone shouting at me what I had to type in when the mail server when down.

Any time I have been working on this I have stopped any process or service that had 'sql' in the description.  If I try to start this service it tells me it doesn't exist and right now sql is not even on this computer  :-(. I have tried to reinstall ezparts and it gets to the point where it needs to install the sql database. It is supposed to create the instance and restore a back up and it says it can't start the process. Looking at sql through management studio, the instance is not there. My only conclusion is that this faulty process is keeping it from being created.

I have looked through regedit an regedt32, I may have missed something there. I'm not happy about going into my registry, but I'm even more leery about going into the operation files with the limited knowledge I have. So I have no idea what file I need to alter or delete to fix this.

[Caitlin]

Pfff... tough one. I'm afraid that my knowledge won't really help you a lot, since you already tried what I would have tried, but I often find google very useful in these situations. It's not uncommon that I browse through 200 pages in search for an answer, but often it gives me inspiration for new things I can try out to fix it.

Having that said, aren't there tools you can use to help you remove the remaining parts of the program?

Also, have you checked task manager, processes, to see if anything is still running on the background of the program? If so, kill the process? Additionally I'd also check msconfig to see if there is still something in starting up that's related to the program, same for the services there.

I'm afraid I'm probably not of much help, but this is all that comes to mind right now. :-(

[GothicFires]

I haven't googled this yet. I only really put it here because I didn't have access to the company techs for the software I am trying to install. The last time I tried to look up something for sql2005 it was a clusterfuck of bullshit so I'm sort of hoping that someone just had that knowledge handy at the top of their brain.

Task manager stuff is pretty basic when doing computer work. It took me over an hour to discover that this service was bad and that it preventing the software from being installed properly. I do not know if that is because of sql's installer or the ezparts installer but getting rid of this service would be the next step in my troubleshooting process... so of course I have no idea how to do it.

thanks for all the help thus far, it's appreciated.

[Caitlin]

Oi, I might have a tip about getting the service removed.

If you right click on it and go to properties, then on tab general it'll say where the exe file of the service is. It seems to me that if you remove that file the service would also be gone, or at least disabled. Or you could put the service elsewhere, or rename the extension. That might prevent it from getting used already too and you keep the actual file on your PC in that case.

[GothicFires]

Well it wasn't the right solution but it did help when I did get the right solution. So thanks Caitlin.

if anyone else has this problem in the future you have to remove the registry key from

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services

and reboot the machine. You can get the name of the service by selecting properties from the pop up menu.

Now... i have to hope this lets me get the software installed  ::)

[Caitlin]

Yay, I was helpful! ^_^

-snicker-

I'm glad to hear you got at least a step further. 8-)