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How to Uninstall the ABM Service Desktop App

The ABM Service desktop app has two entries in Windows' Apps & Features (also called Add or Remove Programs): ABM Service Desktop, which each Windows user has for their own copy, and ABM Service Desktop Machine Components, which is the part installed once for the whole PC. To remove ABM Service completely, remove each user's copy, then the machine half.

How do I uninstall the ABM Service desktop app from a PC?​

Remove ABM Service Desktop from Apps & Features while signed in as each Windows user who used it, then remove ABM Service Desktop Machine Components once, as an administrator. The two are separate on purpose, so removing one does not remove the other.

  1. Ask each user to close their ABM Service windows and choose Exit on the ABM Service tray icon beside the clock.
  2. Sign in to Windows as that user, open Settings, then Apps, then Installed apps (or Apps & Features), find ABM Service Desktop, and choose Uninstall. Repeat for each user of the PC.
  3. Sign in as an administrator, find ABM Service Desktop Machine Components in the same list, and choose Uninstall.
  4. Answer Yes when it asks Remove the ABM Service machine components?
  5. Restart the PC when convenient; the empty program folder is deleted at the next restart.

Doing the users' copies first matters because once the machine half is gone, the ABM Service buttons on the toolbar of ABM (Advanced Business Manager) and the Start menu entry stop working, and any copy left in a user's profile can no longer find its update address.

Tip: Rows whose names start with "ABM Service" but are not ABM Service Desktop or ABM Service Desktop Machine Components, such as a row called just "ABM Service", belong to the older ABM suite or to ABM Service Server. Leave them alone unless you mean to remove those too; ABM Service Server and its companies are removed as described in How to Remove a Company or Uninstall ABM Service Server.

What does uninstalling the ABM Service machine half remove?​

Uninstalling ABM Service Desktop Machine Components removes what the ABM Service Desktop machine setup put in its program folder and the Start menu: the seven launchers, the first-run installer, the bundled copy of the app, the update address, the ABM Service Desktop Start menu entry, the machine setup's log and its settings. Pressing No at the question leaves everything as it was.

Before you confirm, it says: This removes the ABM launchers, the first-run installer, the seed installer and the machine configuration. Per-user ABM Service installations are not removed - each user has their own "ABM Service" entry in Apps & Features. In Apps & Features that per-user entry is actually named ABM Service Desktop.

It deliberately leaves:

  • Each user's own copy of the desktop app, and their logs and settings.
  • The Microsoft Edge WebView2 Runtime, which other programs may use.
  • The Support folder the machine setup created beside the Desktop program folder, with anything in it. Delete it yourself if you no longer need it.
  • Everything in ABM's databases. Neither the machine uninstaller nor a user's own uninstall touches a database, so the tables ABM Service added to the company database, named with the prefix ABM2_, stay with what is in them, and so do any recommended indexes the system administrator applied, whose names start with IX_abm2_. Nothing else in ABM's own tables was changed.
  • The ABM Service code-signing certificate's trust, but only while another ABM Service product is still installed on the PC (ABM Service Server, or the other channel). When the last one goes, the trust goes with it.

When it has finished, it says The ABM Service machine components were removed. and Per-user ABM Service installations were left unchanged.

What does uninstalling ABM Service Desktop for one user remove?​

Uninstalling ABM Service Desktop from one Windows user's Apps & Features removes that user's copy of the ABM Service desktop app from their profile. Other users of the same PC, and the machine half, are not affected.

If that user presses an ABM Service button or opens ABM Service Desktop from the Start menu again later, the desktop app simply installs itself for them again, with the Setting up ABM Service window, because the machine half is still there.

Close the user's ABM Service windows and choose Exit on the tray icon first, so nothing of theirs is running while it is removed.

On a terminal server or a shared PC, each Windows user who has opened ABM Service has an ABM Service Desktop entry of their own, visible only when signed in as them. Users who never opened ABM Service have nothing to remove.

How do I uninstall the ABM Service machine half silently?​

Run the machine half's uninstaller with /quiet from an administrator account. It is in the ABM Service Desktop program folder and is called ABMService-Machine-Uninstall.exe; Apps & Features also holds this silent command for deployment tools.

  1. Open an administrator command prompt, or use your deployment tool's system account.
  2. Run the uninstaller from the Desktop program folder with /quiet, for example "C:\Program Files\ABM Service\Desktop\ABMService-Machine-Uninstall.exe" /quiet when it is installed under Program Files.
  3. Check the exit code: 0 means removed (or already not installed), 2 means another ABM Service setup or uninstall was running so nothing was removed, and 1 means it failed.

The uninstaller always needs administrator rights, silent or not. Each user's own copy has to be removed separately, as that user.

What messages can the ABM Service machine half uninstaller show?​

The uninstaller of ABM Service Desktop Machine Components shows one of these, in a message box titled with its name:

  • The ABM Service machine components are not installed. — there was nothing to remove; any leftover entry in Apps & Features is cleaned up.
  • An ABM Service setup or uninstall (of either product or channel) is running. Wait for it to finish and run this uninstall again. Nothing has been removed. — it waited two minutes for another ABM Service setup or uninstaller on the PC and gave up. Run it again once that has finished.
  • Uninstall did not complete. followed by the reason — something stopped it part-way, for example a file that is in use. Close ABM Service, restart the PC if needed, and run it again. The reason is also written to C:\ProgramData\ABM Service\Desktop\install.log.