I was on a UAT server ( the one that has everything if production including monitoring).
But luckily it was load balanced so the secondary server took most of the load and not too many alarm SMSs went flying...
Did not try to stop the service. But instead restarted the server quickly.

But do believe that the uninstaller could be looked at to see if it really needs this. Especially as you install it straight after again. A upgrade installer would therefore be even better if at all possible.