Installing a service on Windows Server - c#

I am managing the installation of our product to be installed on our clients servers. The installation includes an application that is a service and I am installing that service with the command line through the installer.
The question is, when I install a new version of the application, the uninstall process I believe shuts down the service so it can remove the EXE for it. Do I have to UNINSTALL and REINSTALL the service, or do I need to just install the new application and just start the service as the new EXE for the service will be replaced?

You do not need to UNINSTALL it, but you do need to STOP it if it is running, so that the lock on the EXE is released. Once EXE is updated - you can START the service.

You should be able to update any needed files as long as the service is not running.

Related

Windows service not seen in services even after successful installation

There is one windows service which is installed on one of our servers and working fine.
I tried to replicate the same on the other server, so I took the exe setup from one server to another and tried to install the windows service using installUtil.exe
It is giving me
The Commit phase was completed successfully. The transacted install has been completed.
but the service cannot be found in the services list and it is also giving me this message at the time of installation.
No public installers with the RunInstallerAttribute.Yes, the attribute could be found in the xyz.exe assembly.
Remove InstallState file because there are no installers.
and I am not sure why this is happening? I tried googling but most of them have given the solution to add installer to the project.
But if the installer is not added how the service is running on the first server
is there another way to install the service?
Could it be related to the Windows OS version?

How to create a windows service for an executable application?

So I made a .exe application which runs perfectly fine. But, now I have a requirement to run a background service for a particular reason which is related to this application. I figured out how to make a windows service and it's working, But I had to install the service manually by going to the CMD and using the service manager.
How do I install the service along with the installation of the executable that I made?
Because otherwise, everyone who uses this .exe will need to install the service manually by going to the CMD.
You can do it.
sc.exe create <new_service_name> binPath= "<path_to_the_service_executable>"

Reinstall Windows Service from same Windows Service

I need to reinstall my Windows service from same service. And installable version can be a previous version, so RemovePreviousVersion flag in setup project not going to work.
If I start the uninstall process from same service, my service will be stopped, and I can't to start another process to install desired version.
Is there any other way other than creating bat-file to uninstall and install required version from it?

How to update windows service (Not auto update)

I inherited a couple c# windows service projects. I have fixed some bugs in the code and now I need to deploy the new executable. What is the normal process for updating / replacing a windows service? I have remote desktop access to the server that I am installing it on.
Just stop the service and replace the executable and possibli the additional dependency you have updated. Of course it could be helpful have a backup of the running service, just to be safe :)
If you need to know exactly where the service is running, open Service Control Manager, select your serice, and look in the properties/general: you will find the executable path.
It's enough to replace exe and dlls. Obviously you have to stop the service first. If dlls were registered in GAC they might be used by other software on that machine, in such case before compiling and deploying change their version.
For a .Net Windows Service you need to use the InstallUtil command line tool to uninstall the old service, then use it to install the new one.
See...
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/50614e95(v=vs.80).aspx

Installing a Windows Service -Setup.exe fails

There is a weird issue I am facing. I created my first windows service looking through various blogs and tutorials.
Then created setup for that adding installer etc. It works fine while installing , un-installing via Visual Studio but it fails when i deploy it .
Below is a summary of the errors, details of these errors are listed later in the log.
* Activation of C:\Users\bhuvint\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Projects\CPNS Library\ServicePackage\CommonPushNotificationWindowsService.application resulted in exception. Following failure messages were detected:
+ You cannot start application CommonPushNotificationWindowsService from this location because it is already installed from a different location.
+ You cannot start application CommonPushNotificationWindowsService from location file:///C:/Users/bhuvint/Documents/Visual%20Studio%202010/Projects/CPNS%20Library/ServicePackage/CommonPushNotificationWindowsService.application it is already installed from location file:///C:/inetpub/wwwroot/ServicePackage/CommonPushNotificationWindowsService.application. You can start it from location file:///C:/inetpub/wwwroot/ServicePackage/CommonPushNotificationWindowsService.application or you can uninstall it and reinstall it from location file:///C:/Users/bhuvint/Documents/Visual%20Studio%202010/Projects/CPNS%20Library/ServicePackage/CommonPushNotificationWindowsService.application.
I have already un-installed the service and trying to install it from the deployed service in the same pc to test. But it fails with above error.
I feel i have deployed the windows service the wrong way. Could you guys please suggest how to deploy a windows service ?? (I have looked through net. All suggest building it and installing it from visual studios. But how to publish it is the thing which i need.)
Please help asap.
Possibly you built the setup project before uninstalling the preovious service. In that case you can't use the new setup to uninstall the service, since the setup won't be the same and can't be able to access the service installed.
You should try to go to a previous version of your project and uninstall the service and for the future unistall the service each time you're building your setup project.
This happened to me several times.
Run visual studio in debug mode, and in your properties of your service project goto tab build events in Post-Build event command line and add a -d so you can run your service without installing it, it will run as an console app
The LocalService account acts as a non-privileged user on the local computer, and presents anonymous credentials to any remote server. Use the other accounts with caution, as they run with higher privileges and increase your risk of attacks from malicious code.
If your service application will not install correctly, check to make sure that the ServiceName property for the service class is set to the same value as is shown in the installer for that service. The value must be the same in both instances in order for your service to install correctly.
NoteNote
You can also look at the installation logs to get feedback on the installation process.
You should also check to determine whether you have another service with the same name already installed. Service names must be unique for installation to succeed.
STUPIDITY PERSONIFIED
As i told i was deploying my service. So this published code had a "setup.exe" file to it. Now I had already created a setup project for the windows service , which i was using for the installing , uninstalling . And i din't know (These words needs courage !!) that msi file created is required to install the windows service. So as i got through the folder structure of the setup project. I came across the .msi file . And hence the problem got solved. The Main problem was :
Me not knowing to use setup projects
And I confused setup.exe with the published windows service with the setup of windows service.
I am really sorry for stealing bandwidth off your precious time. Thanks to all for the valuable inputs.

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