Installing a .net 2008 windows service - windows

Question

I just created a simple test Windows Service and am having trouble. I'm new to Windows Services so I don't know if I'm even doing this right.
namespace testWindowsService
{
public partial class Service1 : ServiceBase
{
public Service1()
{InitializeComponent();}
protected override void OnStart(string[] args)
{
FileStream fs = new FileStream(#"c:\temp\started.txt", FileMode.OpenOrCreate, FileAccess.Write);
StreamWriter m_streamWriter = new StreamWriter(fs);
m_streamWriter.BaseStream.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.End);
m_streamWriter.WriteLine("Service Started on \n" + DateTime.Now.ToShortDateString() + " at " + DateTime.Now.ToShortTimeString());
m_streamWriter.Flush();
m_streamWriter.Close();
}
protected override void OnStop()
{
FileStream fs = new FileStream(#"c:\temp\stopped.txt", FileMode.OpenOrCreate, FileAccess.Write);
StreamWriter m_streamWriter = new StreamWriter(fs);
m_streamWriter.BaseStream.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.End);
m_streamWriter.WriteLine("Service Stopped \n" + DateTime.Now.ToShortDateString() + " at " + DateTime.Now.ToShortTimeString());
m_streamWriter.Flush();
m_streamWriter.Close();
}
}
}
Then I built the project and opened Command Prompt from Start -> All Programs -> Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 -> Visual Studio Tools -> Visual Studio 2008 Command Prompt. From the prompt I ran:
installutil C:\Users\myUser\Documents\MyServices\testWindowsService\testWindowsService\bin\Debug\testWindowsService.exe
But I get the error:
No public installers with the RunInstallerAttribute.Yes attribute could be found in the C:\Users\myUser\Documents\MyServices\testWindowsService\testWindowsService\bin\Debug\testWindowsService.exe assembly.
I've tried googling it but found a lot of dead ends and half answers.
Thank you

Answer 1

You need a create an installer. Have a read through these articles to see an example. In particular:
[RunInstallerAttribute(true)]
public class ProjectInstaller : Installer{
private ServiceInstaller serviceInstaller1;
private ServiceProcessInstaller processInstaller;
public MyProjectInstaller(){
// Instantiate installers for process and services.
processInstaller = new ServiceProcessInstaller();
serviceInstaller1 = new ServiceInstaller();
// The services run under the system account.
processInstaller.Account = ServiceAccount.LocalSystem;
// The services are started manually.
serviceInstaller1.StartType = ServiceStartMode.Manual;
serviceInstaller2.StartType = ServiceStartMode.Manual;
// ServiceName must equal those on ServiceBase derived classes.
serviceInstaller1.ServiceName = "Hello-World Service 1";
// Add installers to collection. Order is not important.
Installers.Add(serviceInstaller1);
Installers.Add(processInstaller);
}
}
You can quite easily add an installer class to your project in VS2008, it appears as an item type when adding a new item.