Uninstall Wowza Streaming Engine

Learn how to uninstall Wowza Streaming Engine™ media server software.

Uninstall an instance of Wowza Streaming Engine


  • Windows – Go to the Programs and Features Control Panel, click Wowza Streaming Engine [old-instance-version], and then click Uninstall.
  • OS X – Go to /Applications/Wowza Streaming Engine [old-instance-version] and double-click Wowza Streaming Engine Uninstall.
  • Linux – Run the following commands:
    cd /usr/local/WowzaStreamingEngine-[old-instance-version]
    sudo ./uninstall

Important: If the computer is running on Windows and you migrated your Wowza Streaming Engine settings and content to a newer version of the server software on the same computer, you must back up Wowza Streaming Engine environment variables. After you uninstall the old Wowza Streaming Engine instance, restore the environment variables from the backup to allow your new Wowza Streaming Engine server instance to continue to work.

  1. Open an elevated Command Prompt and run the SET command to export Wowza system variables to a file. For example:
    C:\> set | find "WMS" > myWowzaVars.txt
    Exports all Wowza system variable names and their values to a file named myWowzaVar.txt in Windows drive C.
  2. Uninstall the old Wowza Streaming Engine instance, and then restart the one.
  3. Open the System Properties dialog box (click Start, click Run, and in the Run dialog box, enter SystemPropertiesAdvanced), and then click the Environment Variables button.
  4. Under System variables, click New, and then in the New System Variable dialog box, copy a variable name and its value from the Wowza system variables that you exported into Variable name and Variable value, and then click OK. Repeat this step for all of the Wowza variables (WMSAPP_HOME, WMSCONFIG_HOME, WMSINSTALL_HOME, WMSJAVA_HOME, and WMSMGR_HOME).
  5. Click OK to close the Environment Variables and System Properties dialog boxes, and then restart the media server.

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