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Running a .asmx Web service as a Windows Service

I'm a total novice on asking questions on this forum - I hope I ask this question correctly.
The problem I'm trying to tackle is this: I have a Visual Studio 2010 project which is for a Web Service. The class which does the work is defined in a ".asmx" file. The class inherits from the "System.Web.Services.WebService" class.
It runs happily on IIS on a server. Clients can make SOAP calls to the Web Service and it actions the requests and sends a response. That's all fine.
The problem is that I want it to run on a Windows 7 PC on which I can't install IIS. So I wish it to run as a Windows Service (if possible). The only "client" of the service will be the user on that PC.
In other words, I wish to run all the code that is in my .asmx as a Windows Service (if possible).
In an ideal world I'd be able to re-use my existing .asmx (if possible), and not have to copy and paste all my code across to a new Windows Service solution.
So my goal is to find the up-to-date way of running an .asmx Web Service as a Windows Service. I'm hoping someone could point me in the right direction on how I accomplish this.
I've done quite a bit of searching, and it looks as though this is very much possible to do. The problem is that a lot of solutions out there, appear to be slightly out of date. Or I've got my concepts rather mixed up.
Based on "How can I deploy my WCF Service without IIS?", I've had a look at a few things.
The closest I've come is this: "https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms751414.aspx". However, in this example, the actual class which does the work (the calculator) is actually contained in the service itself. I would have thought you could have separated them out. In other words, have the service create instances of a class that comes from my .asmx file.
The second closes I've come across is "https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb332338.aspx#msdnwcfhc_topic4", however this is .NET 3.0 and VS 2005. I'm also struggling to understand how to link my existing class into the service.
The other solutions I encounter suggest adding references to "Microsoft.Web.Services3.dll", "System.Web.dll", and "System.Web.Services.dll", although a few people seem to think this is called WSE which was updated to WCF in .net 4.0 and so I should not be using it.
Any pointers as to where I get started?

In an ideal world, you would switch to WCF, as it can easily self-host, host in a service, etc. And there are plenty of examples out there. It is easy enough to migrate the code from ASMX to WCF. But this is 3.5, as NetFX (WCF, WF and WPF were released under 3.5).
With ASMX, you need a server to host with. You can create a simple "server" with the HttpListener class. This may be heavy enough for your purpose.
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.net.httplistener(v=vs.85).aspx
IIS now has a hostable core, which can be used with newer versions of .NET, but if you cannot install the newer versions and have to leave the client machines at 3.0, it is probably not your best option.
You may be able to dig up old source for Cassini, which was Microsoft's implementation that eventually became the hostable web core.
Back in 2008, someone snagged the server in VS, which might be an option. Note that the version on this page is for VS 2008, which means 4.0:
http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/23939/Light-IIS-Run-Asp-net-without-IIS
Ultidev has a server that is reported to self-host: http://ultidev.com/download/default.aspx
Hope one of these helps.

Just for completeness, here's how I solved this:
In the end I went with running IIS on client PCs and just continued using the asmx.
I found that converting the asmx to WCF to be quite tricky. To be precise, it was the thread handling within the asmx (thread handling coded by someone else), that I found to be quite hard to convert. To explain further the asmx which I was trying to convert, did all its work in a class which inherited from "System.Web.Services.WebService". It could therefore, create an "Application" instance, which it then used to do its thread management.
So rather than try and do the same thing, using "System.ServiceModel" (which doesn't allow me to create an "Application" instance), I thought it easier to just to use IIS on the client PCs. I figured this was a better use of time than recoding a fairly complex asmx. A bit defeatist I know.
Kind regards to all.

Silverlight - Send/Receive Data at runtime with JAVA

Yesterday I asked about what technology should I use to create dynamic web content here:
PHP, AJAX and Java
The suggested methods were JSP, JQuery, etc. But I thought maybe because I'm a .Net developer and I don't have any experience in web development but I have experience in WPF and C#, maybe I should go with Silverlight but the main problem here would be how can I communicate with the core part of my system which is implemented in Java?
So the main question would be: What is the best [and easiest to learn] method to send a piece of data to the Java part, get the result and use it in silverlight? A tutorial or simple example would be nice.
Thanks a lot in advance.

You should use Java Web Services as stated. Use WCF to invoke the Java WS by adding a Service Reference in Visual Studio by its url, then use the proxy classes generated automatically (located in Reference.cs) to invoke the WS. This is easy but remember SilverLight WS invocations are always asynchronous, so you must cath the OnCompleted event to get the results of the invocation. WS are slow but if the machines are in the same LAN, invocation could take a few milliseconds.
I think pipes are not your solution as SilverLight executes in a Sandbox and have many restrictions on what you can do.

This will depend on many factors, however a relatively easy approach would be to use Java Web Services. On the .NET side, WSDL will be picked up and transformed into proxy class by WSDL.exe from the Windows SDK. If, however, these two systems are on the same server (and intend on staying this way), you may decide to use pipes.

Building a C# Web API - REST

I am about to start a project in C#. I've never used c# and I was hoping I could get some implementation advice before I make a silly mistake and go down the wrong path.
What I am trying to achieve is basically having a C# application on a server that can be accessed via a Web API. This application will take in some string variables and then return a string. The application will be opening and running some installed programs (not c# programs).
I've read about WCF but I think at first glance this might be overkill as the API I am hoping to create will only have one or two request methods and will return a string.
What I am really looking for is advice on what I should be using, what to look into and even links to good tutorials on building web services with C# and how I can make the link between a web API to a C# app.
Thanks all for any advice.

Skip wcf and asmx. Instead just implement this stuff through generic handlers (.ashx) files.
You have complete control over what comes in and goes out without having to muck around with all the XML garbage. We did this a while back and haven't looked back.
In short, I'd use WCF if my endpoints were going to be something other than the web server. I'd use asmx if I had to deliver all of the responses back as XML AND I was assured only .net clients would be accessing it.
Generic handlers are like .aspx pages but without all of the overhead of the page lifecycle. It gives you get a context object that has access to all of the http post and query string variables and it's up to you to decide what to emit back.
They are simple to implement and have none of the "what was that config setting for again?" issues.
Here are a couple pretty good walkthroughs:
http://swindelles.com/2008/07/11/creating-rest-web-services-in-c-sharp/
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/aspnet/RestServicesInASPNET2.aspx

If you think WCF might be overkill you could implement a simple ASP.NET MVC application that returns data as JSON or XML.
http://omaralzabir.com/create_rest_api_using_asp_net_mvc_that_speaks_both_json_and_plain_xml/
update: Another excellent option is ServiceStack. I've used it and it's really nice to work with.

You could look into vanilla web services. I only briefly glanced at it, but this seems like a decent guide.

You really need to take a look to the WCF Data Services they are easy to implement
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/data/bb931106
I first met them when I implemented the Dino Esposito examples in March 2010 MSDN Magazine
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/ee336022.aspx
I recommend you first read the Dino Example.

For a simple Web API, WCF is overkill, clunky, operation orientated and designed for SOAP based services (it does Web HTTP, but that was an afterthought).
The new kid on the block is ASP.NET MVC Web API for lightweight web-orientated architectures. Prepare to see more and more of this young upstart.

Controlling a service through a separate application

I'm writing a windows service to do some daily processing, and I want to have a user-friendly way to interact with it. I'll just be doing basic things like checking its status and viewing logs, though I may decide I want to throw in a function call or two as well. After doing some research, it sounds like I need a separate application to perform these functions, since the service will run independently of any user that's logged into the host machine. My idea is to have this application interact with the service through some kind of interface, but I'm not sure where to begin.
What would be the simplest way to have an application communicate with a separate service? Would I use COM, WCF, a message queue, or something else entirely? I know there are probably a few ways to do this, so I would love to hear some pros and cons if possible.
Edit: The service and the application will both be running on the same machine.

Use WCF with NetNamedPipeBinding (allows only IPC on the same machine) or .NET Remoting. If you want to do it quickly choose the technology you are more familiar with. If you are not familiar with any of these technologies choose WCF because it is newer one and you will more probably use it again in the future - so exeprience with it will be useful.

Ideally you would create a separate application and use WCF to communicate between your service and this application.
But there is a 'cheaper' way which is to implement your own simple Web server using HttpListener. See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc163879.aspx
This makes it easy to accept a few simple commands and you can send them using any web browser.
For viewing logs why not just tail the log files (using e.g. baretail)?

Skip WCF, and just use plain .NET Remoting. So much easier. Why they call it deprecated, God knows.
Edit: Seeing it runs on the same PC, the transport would be Named Pipes, IIRC WCF supports this too.

Web developer moving to Winforms

I have been doing ASP.NET / C# development for several years now. I have recently been offered a project that will need to be a winforms application (I am assuming .net 2.0).
Specs:
Winforms applicaton
Application will
have "testing for understanding
questions"
Must support flash and camtasia
files (these are "lessons")
I have done winforms development before, although nothing that is this involved. As there is a potential need for this application to be generic enough to apply to multiple different "disciplines", I would like to make the application generic enough to be easily configurable. The caveat here is that the application will need to be run from a CD-ROM and that I cannot rely explicitly on an internet connection. I was thinking of using something like SQL-Lite to support the configuration of the application. There will not be the need for updating the application as it will not be updated (at least I don't think, I guess there is the possibility of the application calling a webservice and configuring its-self based upon returned values).
With the requirements of supporting Flash and Camtasia, along with making this application generic enough to support different "disciplines", and my self being an ASP.NET developer, does anyone have an recommendations or tips/ tricks to look out for? Has anyone done something like this before?
Thanks in advance.

I'd start by writing a user control that can be used to either display a video file (presumably the output from Camtasia) or a Shockwave app. Once you have that user control, I'd then move on to look at the overall app.
If you're using Winforms, and the software is supposed to run from the CD (instead of merely be installed from CD) you'll need to have the DotNet framework already on the computer I think - but then I'm not an expert in deployment.
I find the application model in Winforms to be a lot easier than WebForms, but then I was "raised" in thick clients, so I suppose I would.
I would also, whilst agreeing to WinForms if needs really must, encourage the client to give consideration to using WPF instead - which opens up the idea that you could also provide access over the web using a simlar interface using Silverlight...
Just a few thoughts anyway - good luck with it...