Home/ Questions/Q 6630435
In Process

The Archive Base Latest Questions

Editorial Team
  • 0
Asked: 2026-05-25T22:24:14+00:00

I’m trying to reinstall a service I’ve written using C#. The first time this

  • 0

I’m trying to reinstall a service I’ve written using C#.
The first time this worked. I used installutil to handle the install and the service showed up in the list of services and I could start it.
Then I made some updates to the code and uninstalled the service. After figuring out I had to close the services window, the service seemed to have disappeared (i.e. successfully uninstalled).
However, upon trying to install the service again I got the message saying:

System.ComponentModel.Win32Exception: The specified service already exists

This seemed strange as I couldn’t see it in the services window. I finally thought I found the problem after deleting a registry key regarding my service, but unfortunately this didn’t solve anything.

Also, uninstalling again doesn’t do much to solve the problem as this results in the contradictory message:

System.ComponentModel.Win32Exception: The specified service does not exist as an installed service

What should I believe? Does or doesn’t the service exists? I feel like a physicist trying to figure out whether the cat is dead or alive. I hope someone here knows something to help solve this problem.

Share

Leave an answer

You must login to add an answer.

Need An Account,

1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    A related SO-answer finally pointed me in the right direction (why I didn’t find that in Google or SO’s own search I don’t know).
    Anyway, apparently the Designer.cs generated by Visual Studio also creates a process- and service-installer. Which of course install services with the same name as my manually created installers.
    Removing my own installers solved the problem.

    • 0