Re: Windows Service Launching C# App

From: Joshua Flanagan (josh_at_msnews.com)
Date: 03/12/05 

Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 19:49:26 -0600

That's very interesting. Sorry I don't have any solution for your
immediate problem. If you do consider re-architecting in the future,
I'd suggest that you look into creating a separate GUI application that
communicates with the service via .NET remoting. That way the service
can continue to run and do its work when a user is logged out - but a
logged in user would still be able to interact with the service (through
the separate GUI client).

Good luck!

Brad Jones wrote:
> Hi Joshua, thanks for the response.
>
> These applications do not need to be invoked independent of the service,
> although they can be. Our equipment populates circuit boards with
> components, and most of the applications handle various conditions and
> situations that can occur requiring user intervention to resolve. So, in
> essence, the applications act like services with GUI's.
>
> A customer typically starts the production run and logs out for security
> reasons. Many times another user will log in with reduced privileges but the
> machine continues to run during any logouts. Since, as you know, services
> don't readily support a GUI, the method I described earlier is how we get
> around that. All applications started by the master service
> (CreateProcess()/CreateProcessAsUser()) remain running until machine/windows
> shutdown. We display dialogs, handle windows messages, and even access the
> network if needed (using a predefined account) without anyone logged in.
> There are lights on the equipment which alert the user to any problems. BTW
> we are running Win2k Pro.
>
> I guess I'm looking for an equivalent method (again...hack?) to keep the C#
> app running during a logoff. Maybe one doesn't exist. Rearchitecting is not
> really an option at this point. I'd sooner be forced to do a rewrite in C++.
>
> I don't know if any of that information is helpful, but thanks again for
> taking the time to respond.
>
>
> "Joshua Flanagan" <josh@msnews.com> wrote in message
> news:eZffHQdJFHA.3340@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...
>
>>I assume you need the functionality to be usable from both a GUI and a
>>service.
>>Is there a reason why you can't factor out the common code into a
>>separate library, and then call it from the service and the GUI?
>>
>>
>>Brad Jones wrote:
>>
>>>Hello, I'm hoping someone can give me some help or guidance here. I'm not
>>>sure if this is even the best group to post to for this.
>>>
>>>Our OEM equipment's software architecture relies heavily on a "master"
>>>windows service. This responsibility of this service is to launch 10 or
>>>so
>>>other applications, some of which have GUI's. These applications need to
>>>be
>>>running whether somebody is logged in or not. There is no communication
>>>required between the master service and the individual applications. An
>>>external configuration file is read by the master service when it starts,
>>>telling it which applications to launch and what other behavior is
>>>desired.
>>>So, when a newly developed application requires that it be running when
>>>nobody is logged in, information is simply added to the configuration
>>>file
>>>and we're done. Currently, all of these applications are C++/MFC and the
>>>trick (hack?) used to keep these applications running when a user logoff
>>>occurs is related to http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q164166/ . This has
>>>been working well for several years.
>>>
>>>Now to my question. I recently completed development on a GUI C#
>>>application
>>>which I would like to run in the same manner as described above.
>>>Everything
>>>starts up fine, but my C# application does not survive the logoff, and in
>>>some cases interferes with it. Is there a way to get past this or should
>>>I
>>>start looking for another solution (like rewrite it in C++). Hope this
>>>makes
>>>sense to somebody and thanks in advance for any advice.
>>>
>>>
>>>Brad Jones (Not CoduGuru guy!)
>>>
>>>
>
>
>

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