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Launching Windows Form on IIS - any workaround?

I faced problem with IIS web application. There is some RTF processing needed on server side and this can be done with windows control. This control requires to be created and shown in order to perform operations (RTF stuff).
I would like to expose web-service from IIS that could launch windows form on Windows Server (the one that is hosting IIS), perform some work and return data to web-service. Problem is that IIS does not allow to launch windows forms.
Requirement is to host whole app on IIS. Windows Service installed separately is not an option here. I tried deploying WCF service on IIS that that didn't worked too.

Running Windows Service in Foreground

I have a bat file which is installed as a service. I can run the service on a remote box. This service needs to launch another application. The launched application needs to be visible(run in foreground). Currently the launched application is running in background as the windows service is running in background. How can i make the windows service or both the windows service and the application that it launches run in foreground? I intend to manage the service with the ServiceController class in C#.

I think you should probably read
http://asprosys.blogspot.com.au/2009/03/allow-service-to-interact-with-desktop.html
Making a service to just launch another app is a real security issue, what if your other app gets replaced with something else do you have all the checks in your Service to ensure your app is the app you think it is.

A proper approach is to launch the second application in the user's session, while your Windows service app always runs in session 0.
The approach has been part of my discussion with #RaheelKhan under this thread,
How reliable is adding an application manifest to ensure elevated privileges across windows xp, vista and 7?
It requires proper understanding of Windows sessions, session isolation, and platform invoke.

IIS vs Windows Service?

I have a C# application that needs to always be running. I originally planned on making this a windows service but I now have a requirement to make the application host a web admin console.
I haven't played with IIS in quite a few years so my question is this:
What would you recommend I use?
I've thought about making a windows service and embedding a web server such as Cassini but so far I'm not very happy with the open source web servers I've looked at.
Can IIS handle this? Do people use it for this type of scenario, and if so how?

This sounds like a job for two separate projects.
One is the original Windows Service. Windows Services are well suited for what you're doing.
The second is the Web Project that will be used to administer the Windows Service. This is the part that runs in IIS.

It depends on what you mean by always running. An ASP.NET web application deployed in IIS could very well be unloaded by the web server if there aren't any requests for certain amount of time killing all background threads. So if you want an ever running background thread it would be better suited to use a Windows Service. As far as the web admin is concerned, well, here you don't have much choice: ASP.NET in IIS. In order to do something useful those two applications should be able to find a common language to talk. So you could use a database to store the results into which could be used by both applications.

IIS will run your app on first request, not on server boot. So you will still need to run a service to ensure your app is always running.
You can use IIS as a webserver for your web admin part, and link your ASP.net app with your service by means of a configuration database (easy) or webservices (a little more tricky).

Windows and Web services are two very different creatures. A web service will expose external methods that you can implement against an application, while a windows service is an entity within itself. If you're planning on using this service on a timed interval to perform an operation, a Windows service would be the right way to go. If you use a web service, you will need to invoke the method you wish to run from a secondary application.
If you need to queue commands against your windows service, you could always create a database that was accessible by both your website and your windows service. This way you could send commands and query data between the two. Placing a web service in to serve as an intermidary between the two may be overkill.

Start a process as a specific user, from a WCF managed service running as LocalSystem

Is it possible to spawn a process on a remote server, from a WCF service hosted as Windows Managed Service, when the service is running as LocalSystem?
I need people to be able to execute things on remote servers under the context of their own accounts (basically like PSExec - which isn't an option).
I've made some half-hearted attempts to do this before, but when using process.start, cannot get the process to run as a specific user, if the Windows service hosting the WCF component is running as LocalSystem.
I know this can be acheived by other methods, but I specifically would like to know if the above is achievable - Windows service running as LocalSystem & hosting WCF service, then spawning a process as a specified user.
Thanks
Mick

You could use the Process.Start method which allows you to specify the user under which the process will run.

Windows services

I have a windows application and I need to change it into a windows service, How can I check whether the windows service is running or not without using any external service to keep a check on the main service.
Is there any way to check it within the main service as I have tried work on it but if the windows service is stopped then there is no way I can check on it.
Do I have to implement the thread(keep alive thread) for this, if so then how to do it?

If your main service is not running, how can it check anything?
You have to have a second monitoring service of some kind.

Have a look at
How can I verify if a Windows
Service is running
Detect the Status of a Windows
Service