Issues faced during the Retraction of wrongly deployed solution

I downloaded a project from internet to learn some of the object model stuff. It was included with the .wsp solution to directly deploy it to SharePoint site and test the code. I added the solution as a feature using the following command.

stsadm.exe -o addsolution -filename c:\TesttheCode.wsp

and successfully deployed it using the central admin-->operations-->solution management. Clicked on the Testthecode.wsp and selected the "Deploy Solution" option.

But after the deployment i found that it was not functioning as expected so i tried to remove it completely. But needed some time for that since i was facing some issues..

I tried to remove it by using the operations-->solutionmanagement link and clicking the "Retract solution" option. It failed with an error.
"The timer job for this operation has been created, but it will fail because theadministrative service for this server is not enabled. If the timer job is scheduled to run at a later time, you can run the jobs all at once using stsadm.exe -o execadmsvcjobs. To avoid this problem in the future, enable the Windows SharePoint Services administrative service, or run your operation through the STSADM.exe command line utility."

I tried to Retract it again using the "Retract solution" option second time but the issue was i couldn't find that "Retract solution" option itself. It was just showing one option "Back to solution" and a message "Error" for the TesttheCode.wsp solution

The timerjob status was showing "failed" in Operations-->Time Job status. i was checking various services in central admin Topology and services section. but later i found that, in windows services "Windows SharePoint Services Administration" service was disabled and it was running. so I enabled it using services.msc "start" option. But still in central admin i couldn't find the "Retract solution" option. So i tried the following command and it worked

stsadm.exe -o retractsolution -name testthecode.wsp -immediate -url "http://mydevelopmentapp20:8000/"

It executed successfully with the following message.
"Timer job successfully created."

Then i was able to remove it completely by solution management-->Remove solution option.
But i was able to do various central admin tasks with out enabling this service. i am just trying to find out what exactly this service is offering....

About Me

Hi all, I am living in Bangalore, India. I am working for a company as software engineer, there I develop and enhance the applications mostly based on Microsoft .NET framework, SPS2003 and MOSS2007. Currently I am working with MOSS 2007.I am planning to post my experience about resolving the issues i face during development and also about the new things I learnt. Lets see how it goes..