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Problems with starting windows service on windows xp SP3

I'm currently facing a problem which I can not resolve and I really don't know what to do anymore.
When I'm trying to start the service I receive the message: "The service is started but again also stopped, this because that some of the services will stop if they have nothing to do, for example the performance logs and the alerts service".
I've looked into the Windows Logs but nothing is written there which could describe why my service is all the time stopping. I've also tried to fire the windows service via the command prompt which gives me the message: "The service is not started, but the service didn't return any faults.".
I've tried to remove all keys which references to my service, which didn't resolve the issue.
I've searched on google (maybe not good enough) to find an answer but I didn't found any. I did found some websites which describes what I could do, but all of these suggestions didn't work.
This is kinda ** because I do not know where to look. I do not have any error message, i do not have any id which i can use to search on. I really don't know where to start and I hope you guys can help me on this one.
Detailed explanation about the windows service
OS: Windows XP SP3
.Net Framework: .Net 4.0 Client Profile
Language: C#
Development environment: Visual Studio 2010 Professional (but Visual Studio 2012 RC is installed)
Communications: WCF (Named Pipes), WCF (BasicHTTPBinding)
Named Pipes:
I have chosen for this solution because I wanted to communicate from a windows service to a windows form application. It worked now for quite some time but suddenly my windows service shuts it self down and I couldn't restart it anymore.
There are two named pipes services implemented: An event service which will send any notification to the windows form application and an management service which gives my windows form application the possibility to maintain my windows service.
BasicHTTPBinding:
The basic http binding makes the connection to a central server. This connection is then used for streaming information from the client to the server.
I do not know which additional information you will need, but if you guys need something then I'll try to give it as detailed as possible.
Thank you in advance.

Ok, I have solved the issue and really it is a stupid one. Windows XP will not throw any error or does not report to you that the book where all logs are stored is full!!! After cleaning the log my service started perfectly and keeps running. How stupid! :)

Using Excel Component Works From Application But Not Windows Service

I have a .NET Windows service which self hosts a WCF service. This WCF service then goes on to call an old COM component written in ATL on Visual Studio 6. This COM component then creates a Excel.Application COM component. It calls various methods on this Excel COM component and then calls SaveAs on it to finish saving the document. This SaveAs method call fails. The Windows service is running as Local System so I thought it must be some permission problem. So I changed the windows service so that it ran under my user account (just go into services.msc, stop the service, properties, change log on, and restart the service). However, the same problem persists.
I create a quick .NET Win Forms test app and then run the COM component from there. This works fine. The app is running under my user account so I would have thought running the windows service under my account would have the same effect.
What is the problem with the windows service (even when it is running under my user account)? And how do I solve this?

Since Vista Windows Service are not allowed to do "Desktop things" (security etc.)... additionally Office automation is NOT supported by MS in this scenario...
You could find some way to circumvent all this BUT I would strongly recommend to take another route - for Office files there is a free SDK from MS you can use called OpenXML SDK 2.0 - you can download it here.
IF the features are not enough there are other free and commercial SDKs out there - to recommend something it would help to know more about your requirements.

windows service working on windows 7 but not on windows server 2003

Solved the problem see the bottom of my post.
So I have a simple windows service that watches a specific folder and upploads files that come into it to a server using a web service.
It's working fine on my machine using windows 7 but when I try to start it on a windows server 2003, I receive an error: Error 1053: the service did not respond to start or control request in a timely fashion. But I get this message after only a few seconds.
I have created the ServicesPipeTimeout and set it to 60000 milliseconds.
I have tried running it from command line using sc query command and found out that the WIN32_EXIT_CODE is 0, which I think means that the service doesn´t even try to start because it find an error before it starts.
In the event viewer I get errors 7000 and 7009.
I am the Administrator on the windows server.
The only thing I haven´t tried is a hotfix I found from microsoft but I don´t want to use it because as I understand it, it is for when the service actually times out.http://support.microsoft.com/kb/886695
I have tried everything I can think of, is there anything that I am missing?
Gísli
EDIT: Re-installed the .NET framework and now I get a new error, Saying that the service controller can not be found.
EDIT: I setup the service with a setup project, not using the installutil command. This is because I need to get user input during the installation and save that in the registry.
EDIT: I have installed the .NET 4.0 framework, it wasn´t possible to install the service with out doing that.
In addition to what I wrote above I have also tried:
Rebooting.
Re-installing.
I have tried to change the permissions on the files that the service needs to access.
Changing permissions in the registry editor.
Edited the code so that the onStart function only starts one thread.
I think it is some kind of permission problem but I don´t have much experience dealing with Windows server.
Solution:
It turned out to be two seperate problems. The .NET framwork had to be repaired and I had to remove the try/catch clause that I had when starting the service. For some reason (unknown to me) the try catch block did something that made it impossible to start the service in a windows server 2003 but it ran fine on windows 7.
It would be very interesting to know why this is.
Thanks for all the help.
Gísli

Have you installed the right version of .NET Framework on the Server 2003 PC? What comes as standard on Windows 7 will need to be installed manually on an older OS.
You say "I have tried everything I can think of". Please edit the question to show what you have already tried so we don't suggest something you have already done.
EDIT:
Try also the Fusion Log viewer. Set it to log failures then start your service. Hit refresh then see if any errors are logged. Double-click a line for more details.

I'd guess that you installed the .NET 3.5 service using .NET 2.0? InstallUtil will work since the CLR is the same, but the service won't start because of .NET 3.5 dependencies.
See Also:
How to install a Windows service developed in .NET 3.5?

In your OnStart code you could wrap everything in a try-catch block and write the exception message and stack trace to a file using something like:
File.WriteAllText(#"C:\Temp\MyServiceLog.txt", exp.Message + exp.StackTrace);
This will help you analyze the problem. Also, I'm using a very simple way of debugging my services: I'm wrapping them in a WinForms wrapper if the session is interactive. For that, I need the following:
A form that creates an instance of the service class
New methods DoStart and DoStop in my service class, which are public and call the protected OnStart and OnStop methods
New code in above form's OnLoad and OnClose handlers, so the DoStart and DoStop methods of the service instance are called accordingly
Then I add the following code to the Main method in Program.cs:
if (Environment.UserInteractive)
{
Application.Run(new FormServiceHoster());
}
else
{
// ... old code to create service instance.
}
This way you're making the "service" run as an application when you just hit F5 in Visual Studio or double click the EXE in the Explorer. When the service is actually run as a service, the Forms-code is ignored.
Usually you can debug services by attaching to the process, however, that doesn't work for debugging the start and stop code. This method helps a great deal debugging the service start and stop code.
You will need to add references to System.Windows.Forms and System.Drawing manually.

This is the point where I bet you wish you had used some logging package like log4net, which might help tell how far your program gets.
Is it possible that the code in the OnStart event is actually taking longer than you expect. If so, you could move that code to a thread, so that the OnStart event finishes (and so Windows reckons the service has started) while your thread continues working.
Are you running the service as admin? If so, that usually rules out permissions issues. (If it still goes wrong, it will rule out the KB 886695 issue as that seems to only apply to local system).
Since you are using .NET 4.0 are you sure that either, the full version is installed, rather than the Client Profile, or that your application works with the client profile?

Running a C# console application as a Windows service

I have a basic C# console application that I would like to run as a Windows Service.
I have created the Windows service using sc create. This worked fine, and I can see my service under services.msc. When I try and start this service I get the following error:
Could not start the PROJECT service on Local Computer. Error 1053: The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion.`
I read that this might be due to the service code taking longer than 30000 ms to execute. Therefore I removed the bulk of the code so that hardly anything is being executed.. yet the same error persists.
I am using .NET 3.5 for this project.
What would cause this?

You cannot just take any console application and run as Windows service. First you need to implement your service class that would inherit from ServiceBase, then in entry point (Main) you need to run the service with ServiceBase.Run(new YourService()). In your service class you need to define what happens when service starts and ends.
Ideally you should add ServiceInstaller to your assembly too. This way you will be able to preset your service properties, and use installutil.exe to install the service.

Walkthrough: Creating a Windows Service Application in the Component Designer is a walkthrough of how to create a service.

Not any old application can be run as a service, especially under more recent versions of Windows. They are expected to support certain functionality, respond to certain requests, and (again, under recent versions of Windows) not interact with the user directly.
If you want a service, write an application specifically designed to be a service.

I do not know what "sc create" is. But I know, using Visual Studio 2010, one can build a Windows service project. By the way, I have created a project of this kind and it does work well all the way.

why is this so? – wulfgar.pro Jun 3 '11 at 1:13
#WulfgarPro - because windows service application has a little
different architecture. You need to define what to do when service starts and ends. – Alex Aza Jun 3 '11 at 1:15
(Unfortunately I can't write a comment yet.)
It is because SCM (Service Control Manager) controls the service trough ServiceBase Class. If one would only need to define what it does when it starts and stops there would be no need for inheritance and overriding. One could simply create those two methods. Unfortunately there is a bit more work involved because ServiceBase contains a bit more functionality.

I have had great success with TopShelf. This is a nuget package that allows your .NET console app to also have the necessary Windows Service hooks such that it can happily run as either a console app (useful for debugging), or be installed as a Windows Service.

Difference between website's access and web service's acess

Following this question, I've met another problem where the request just doesn't go through. When I was first given the task, the website was working like so :
Website -> Web Services -> Library -> External Server (TextML Server for those who might be familiar with it).
I was asked a couple of things and of them was to get the web service layer out of the way to improve performance, like this :
Website -> Library -> External Server
So I went through the code and made the proper changes but I faced a problem where authentication was a problem, I asked the question and found the solution. Now the Website use the correct user to connect with the External Server. But then the method connecting with this particular server just run and goes on, and on, and on.... forever.
So the question is quite simple :
Is there a difference for the External Server either its a Web Service or a website that's is trying to establish a connection?
I use c#, asp on Windows XP and when I debut I use the local IIS which runs IIS 5.0 (I know its kinda old)
Also, one point to note if that if inside the same method, I use the webservice from my website to connect, it works and then the next line of code I use the library, it doesn't.
Example code :
WsDocServerService.DocServer doc = new WsDocServerService.DocServer();
XmlDocument oIndexList = new XmlDocument();
oIndexList = doc.GetSystemDocument(INDEX_FILE);//This will work
oIndexList = DocServerController.GetSystemDocument(INDEX_FILE);//This wont
//But both way I use the DocServerController.GetSystemDocument(filename); to get the file
Thanks a lot!
Although, I don't need a solution, maybe a proper answer could help me to solve the problem!
EDIT
The web service method called above is calling the controller method :
DocServerController.GetSystemDocument(INDEX_FILE);
That's why I thought this was useless to go with the Web Service, and yes I meant an .ASMX web Service.
I went with the admin of the server and reviewed the event log, there is an error relating a COM+ program that appears every time I run the above method. Sadly, I think the problem has something to do with the server itself.
Do you think I should shut the question?
EDIT
Event viewer logged entry :
The run-time environment has detected an inconsistency in its internal state.
This indicates a potential instability in the process that could be caused by
the custom components running in the COM+ application, the components they
make use of, or other factors. VariantUnmarshal: CoUnmarshalInterface for
IID_IDispatch failure
Server Application ID: {F27C90B8-C40E-4B76-8F01-A8C035EACC08}
Server Application Instance ID:
{79C9FDFC-78AD-461B-95E6-80FF54880317}
Server Application Name: Textml Server
Error Code = 0x800706ba : The RPC server is unavailable.
COM+ Services Internals Information:
File: d:\nt\com\complus\src\comsvcs\ucp\assoc.cpp, Line: 723
Comsvcs.dll file version: ENU 2001.12.4720.3959 shp
For more information, see Help and Support Center at
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

There seems to be some COM+ misconfiguration on your server.
Here are some workarounds by other people running into this problem (Event 4689):
http://www.eventid.net/display.asp?eventid=4689&eventno=3980&source=COM+&phase=1