Modifying the "Path to executable" of a windows service

Issue

I’d like to modify the path to my application, but doing so breaks it because the service still points to the old location.

By going to Administrative Tools > Services you can open a properties dialog and view the Path to executable, but there is no way to change it.

Is there any way a user can modify the service path without having to reinstall the application ?

Solution

There is also this approach seen on SuperUser which uses the sc command line instead of modifying the registry:

sc config <service name> binPath= <binary path>

Note: the space after binPath= is important. You can also query the current configuration using:

sc qc <service name>

This displays output similar to:

[SC] QueryServiceConfig SUCCESS

SERVICE_NAME: ServiceName

    TYPE               : 10  WIN32_OWN_PROCESS
    START_TYPE         : 2   AUTO_START
    ERROR_CONTROL      : 1   NORMAL
    BINARY_PATH_NAME   : C:\Services\ServiceName
    LOAD_ORDER_GROUP   :
    TAG                : 0
    DISPLAY_NAME       : <Display name>
    DEPENDENCIES       :
    SERVICE_START_NAME : [email protected]

Answered By – Niall Connaughton

This Answer collected from stackoverflow, is licensed under cc by-sa 2.5 , cc by-sa 3.0 and cc by-sa 4.0