C# – Windows Service not appearing in services list after install

csetup-deploymentvisual-studio-2008windows-services

I've created a windows service in C#, using Visual Studio 2008
I pretty much followed this:
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/dotnet/simplewindowsservice.aspx

I created a setup project, as instructed to in the article, and ran it…
it installs my service to C:\Program Files\Product etc.... however, it does not then appear in the services list..

What am I missing?

Best Answer

The most important part of the article you linked, is here

To add a custom action to the setup project

1.In Solution Explorer, right-click the setup project, point to View, then choose Custom Actions. The Custom Actions editor appears.

2.In the Custom Actions editor, right-click the Custom Actions node and choose Add Custom Action. The Select Item in Project dialog box appears.

3.Double-click the application folder in the list box to open it, select primary output from MyNewService (Active), and click OK. The primary output is added to all four nodes of the custom actions � Install, Commit, Rollback, and Uninstall.

4.Build the setup project.

If you skip these steps, your setup project will build and copy your files to the correct directory; however, they will not register your binary as a service without these steps.

I should also note that this works for older versions of Visual Studio that had/have the built-in Setup/Deployment project template. The newer versions of Visual Studio have different setup/deployment projects (some requiring third party software.)

I'd recommend looking into WiX Toolset and check here for WiX Installation of Windows Services.

Related Solutions

Windows – How to uninstall a Windows service if the files do not exist anymore

You have at least three options. I have presented them in order of usage preference.

Method 1 - You can use the SC tool (Sc.exe) included in the Resource Kit. (included with Windows 7/8)

Open a Command Prompt and enter

sc delete <service-name>

Tool help snippet follows:

DESCRIPTION:
        SC is a command line program used for communicating with the
        NT Service Controller and services.

delete----------Deletes a service (from the registry).

Method 2 - use delserv

Download and use delserv command line utility. This is a legacy tool developed for Windows 2000. In current Window XP boxes this was superseded by sc described in method 1.

Method 3 - manually delete registry entries (Note that this backfires in Windows 7/8)

Windows services are registered under the following registry key.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services

Search for the sub-key with the service name under referred key and delete it. (and you might need to restart to remove completely the service from the Services list)

Creating an MSI installer for a Windows Service

What you're looking for (and that article has nothing on this, that I can see) is a ProjectInstaller class. If you open your service up in design view, you can right-click and select "Add Installer." This adds a class to your project called, by default (I think), ProjectInstaller.cs. In design view, you will see two items with the default names ServiceProcessInstaller1 and ServiceInstaller1. Change the properties on each for what account you want your service to run under, what the service name is, description, etc.

Then, in your MSI project, click on the Custom Actions Editor icon and add the "Primary output from YourServiceProject" to all of the actions, Install, Commit, Rollback, and Uninstall.

Here's an older walk-through from Microsoft.

Best of luck.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Windows – How to uninstall a Windows service if the files do not exist anymore

Creating an MSI installer for a Windows Service

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