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I have a service in services.msc with the description saying "Failed to read description. Error code:2".

The problem is the service isnt in the registry, using "sc delete wont work. Ive tried adding the key into the registry with the string value set for the display name the same as the service in the service.msc then attempting to delete.

user2031303
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  • What message do you get when you invoke sc delete? Have you tried..net stop then sc delete PAUSE – Ross Bush Feb 01 '13 at 04:18
  • [SC] OpenService FAILED 1060: The specified service does not exist as an installed service. – user2031303 Feb 01 '13 at 04:22
  • when using the "net stop", it says that the service isnt started – user2031303 Feb 01 '13 at 04:25
  • The service needs to be running in order to stop it. That is why you get the "service does not exist". Is this a service that should be running and is not? – Ross Bush Feb 01 '13 at 04:28
  • If you know the physical path you can try to start it: using sc create binpath= "C:\ and net start PAUSE. If that doesn't start it then it is possibly misconfigured :( – Ross Bush Feb 01 '13 at 04:35
  • if i try to create the service, i get the message "[SC] CreateService FAILED 1078: The name is already in use as either a service name or a service display name." – user2031303 Feb 01 '13 at 10:25
  • What is the name of service in services.msc? If you double click on the service, you will get the name of service which you can search for in the registry. – Sun May 06 '14 at 17:35
  • Try this http://stackoverflow.com/questions/13153214/windows-service-is-giving-description-failed-to-read-description-error-code-2 – NoWar Apr 29 '16 at 13:11

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AFAIK, the problem lies here::

Ive tried adding the key into the registry with the string value set for the display name the same as the service in the service.msc.

The actual Registry Entry SubKey of the service may change from the DisplayName. Ex:: HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\ ABC may contain the DisplayName Value as XYZ.

All service names are defined under: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE.

Abhineet
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