Registering and Deregistering the Lotus Domino Server Service

The Scenario

We have a test server which is used for development test purposes only. It was set up with Domino on the C: drive (which normally I prefer to keep clean for the operating system). Domino was apparently later installed on D: drive but the old installation was not removed and the Lotus Domino Server service remained in startup.

As a result of the old service still being installed, the new one did not get installed - I'm not sure if this was a notes problem or if the person doing the installation had "cheated" and simply copied the folders to the new drive. It was only a test server after all. Regardless of the cause, the issues became;

1. There was an old service which was disabled
   To prevent the wrong domino server from accidentally being started, the folder C:\Lotus was renmed to C:\Old-Lotus.
   
   
2. The New Service was not installed
   This meant that everytime the server was rebooted, the domino service had to be restarted manually - and also, whomever started the Domino server, started it on their login. Anyone using a different login would not be able to get to the console (except via the Notes Admin Client) to monitor, run server tasks or to shut the service down neatly.

This post is all about how I managed to resolve the problem.

Knocking the Old One Off - Gentle Method

There's a nifty little uninstall routine for de-registering Lotus Domino services in Windows. All you need to do is;

1. Go to a command prompt
   
   
2. Change to the domino folder
   C:
   CD C:\Old-Lotus\Domino
   
   
3. Run the Service installation program with the -d parameter.
   ntsvinst.exe -d
   You can read more about this here..
   
   
4. Of course, you shouldn't get your hopes up because this didn't work for me. I'm sure it works fine with a normal notes install but if you've mucked around with the folders since, it doesn't.
   
   

Knocking the Old One Off - Rough Method
Luckily, for us, there's a windows equivalent for removing services. It's called the Registry Editor. Here's how;

1. Start the Registry Editor (Start, Run, Regedit.exe)
   
   
2. Browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Services
   
   
3. Look for the folder/Service called Lotus Domino Server (LotusDominoData) and right mouse click on it.
   
   
4. When the menu appears, choose Delete.
   (BTW: You'll notice in the right hand panel that the file path to the service is displayed, so you can actually check before you delete).
   
   
5. When prompted to confirm deletion, choose Yes.
   
   
   
   
6. You can close the Registry Editor now.
   
   
7. You'll notice that this has had no effect. That's because, this being a Windows System, we have to reboot.
   
   
8. Once rebooted, the service will no longer be displayed.

Putting the Right one Back

Now we can make use of that nifty little install I talked about earlier, only this time, we'll use the -c parameter, which creates the service. The instructions are more or less the same.

1. Go to a command prompt (start, run, cmd)
   
   
2. Change to the domino folder (the real one this time)
   D:
   CD D:\Lotus\Domino
   
   
3. Run the Service installation program with the -c parameter.
   ntsvinst.exe -c
   
   
4. This time, it works a treat - and no reboot is necessary. You can start the service from service manager in control panel and you can set it to be "automatic".

A happy ending. (BTW: The Server was Domino 8.5 on Windows Server 2003 but the instructions should work for several older versions of both).