Installing multiple instances of the same windows service on a server - windows

Question

So we've produced a windows service to feed data to our client application and everything is going great. The client has come up with a fun configuration request that requires two instances of this service running on the same server and configured to point at separate databases.
So far I haven't been able to get this to happen and was hoping my fellow stackoverflow members might be able to give some hints as to why.
Current setup:
I've set up the project that contains the windows service, we'll call it AppService from now on, and the ProjectInstaller.cs file that handles custom installation steps to set the service name based on a key in the App.config like so:
this.serviceInstaller1.ServiceName = Util.ServiceName;
this.serviceInstaller1.DisplayName = Util.ServiceName;
this.serviceProcessInstaller1.Account = System.ServiceProcess.ServiceAccount.LocalSystem;
In this case Util is just a static class tha tloads the service name from the config file.
From here forward I have tried two different ways to get both services installed and both have failed in an identical way.
The first way was to simply install the first copy of the service, copy the installed directory and renamed it, and then ran the following command after modifying the app config to change the desired service name:
InstallUtil.exe /i AppService.exe
When that didn't work I tried to create a second installer project, edited the config file and built the second installer. When I ran the installer it worked fine but the service did not show up in services.msc so I ran the previous command against the second installed code base.
Both times i received the following output from InstallUtil (relevant parts only):
Running a transacted installation.
Beginning the Install phase of the installation.
Installing service App Service Two...
Service App Service Two has been successfully installed.
Creating EventLog source App Service Two in log Application...
An exception occurred during the Install phase.
System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
The Rollback phase of the installation is beginning.
Restoring event log to previous state for source App Service Two.
Service App Service Two is being removed from the system...
Service App Service Two was successfully removed from the system.
The Rollback phase completed successfully.
The transacted install has completed.
The installation failed, and the rollback has been performed.
Sorry for the long winded post, wanted to make sure there is enough relevant information. The piece that so far has me stumped is that it states that the installation of the service completes successfully and its only after it goes to create the EventLog source that the NullReferenceException seems to get thrown. So if anyone knows what I'm doing wrong or has a better approach it would be much appreciated.

Answer 1

Have you tried the sc / service controller util? Type
sc create
at a command line, and it will give you the help entry. I think I've done this in the past for Subversion and used this article as a reference:
http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/subversion/trunk/notes/windows-service.txt

Answer 2

sc create [servicename] binpath= [path to your exe]
This solution worked for me.

Answer 3

You can run multiple versions of the same service by doing the following:
1) Copy the Service executable and config to its own folder.
2) Copy Install.Exe to the service executable folder (from .net framework folder)
3) Create a config file called Install.exe.config in the service executable folder
with the following contents (unique service names):
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration>
<appSettings>
<add key="ServiceName" value="The Service Name"/>
<add key="DisplayName" value="The Service Display Name"/>
</appSettings>
</configuration>
4) Create a batch file to install the service with the following contents:
REM Install
InstallUtil.exe YourService.exe
pause
5) While your there, create an uninstall batch file
REM Uninstall
InstallUtil.exe -u YourService.exe
pause
EDIT:
Note sure if I missed something, here is the ServiceInstaller Class (adjust as required):
using System.Configuration;
namespace Made4Print
{
partial class ServiceInstaller
{
/// <summary>
/// Required designer variable.
/// </summary>
private System.ComponentModel.IContainer components = null;
private System.ServiceProcess.ServiceInstaller FileProcessingServiceInstaller;
private System.ServiceProcess.ServiceProcessInstaller FileProcessingServiceProcessInstaller;
/// <summary>
/// Clean up any resources being used.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="disposing">true if managed resources should be disposed; otherwise, false.</param>
protected override void Dispose(bool disposing)
{
if (disposing && (components != null))
{
components.Dispose();
}
base.Dispose(disposing);
}
#region Component Designer generated code
/// <summary>
/// Required method for Designer support - do not modify
/// the contents of this method with the code editor.
/// </summary>
private void InitializeComponent()
{
this.FileProcessingServiceInstaller = new System.ServiceProcess.ServiceInstaller();
this.FileProcessingServiceProcessInstaller = new System.ServiceProcess.ServiceProcessInstaller();
//
// FileProcessingServiceInstaller
//
this.FileProcessingServiceInstaller.ServiceName = ServiceName;
this.FileProcessingServiceInstaller.DisplayName = DisplayName;
//
// FileProcessingServiceProcessInstaller
//
this.FileProcessingServiceProcessInstaller.Account = System.ServiceProcess.ServiceAccount.LocalSystem;
this.FileProcessingServiceProcessInstaller.Password = null;
this.FileProcessingServiceProcessInstaller.Username = null;
//
// ServiceInstaller
//
this.Installers.AddRange(new System.Configuration.Install.Installer[] { this.FileProcessingServiceInstaller, this.FileProcessingServiceProcessInstaller });
}
#endregion
private string ServiceName
{
get
{
return (ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["ServiceName"] == null ? "Made4PrintFileProcessingService" : ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["ServiceName"].ToString());
}
}
private string DisplayName
{
get
{
return (ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["DisplayName"] == null ? "Made4Print File Processing Service" : ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["DisplayName"].ToString());
}
}
}
}

Answer 4

Another quick way to specify a custom value for ServiceName and DisplayName is using installutil command line parameters.
In your ProjectInstaller class override virtual methods Install(IDictionary stateSaver) and Uninstall(IDictionary savedState)
public override void Install(System.Collections.IDictionary stateSaver)
{
GetCustomServiceName();
base.Install(stateSaver);
}
public override void Uninstall(System.Collections.IDictionary savedState)
{
GetCustomServiceName();
base.Uninstall(savedState);
}
//Retrieve custom service name from installutil command line parameters
private void GetCustomServiceName()
{
string customServiceName = Context.Parameters["servicename"];
if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(customServiceName))
{
serviceInstaller1.ServiceName = customServiceName;
serviceInstaller1.DisplayName = customServiceName;
}
}
Build your project
Install the service with installutil adding your custom name using /servicename parameter:
installutil.exe /servicename="CustomServiceName" "c:\pathToService\SrvcExecutable.exe"
Please note that if you do not specify /servicename in the command line the service will be installed with ServiceName and DisplayName values specified in ProjectInstaller properties/config

Answer 5

Old question, I know, but I've had luck using the /servicename option on InstallUtil.exe. I don't see it listed in the built-in help though.
InstallUtil.exe /servicename="My Service" MyService.exe
I'm not entirely sure where I first read about this but I haven't seen it since. YMMV.

Answer 6

I didn't have much luck with the above methods when using our automated deployment software to frequently install/uninstall side-by-side windows services, but I eventually came up with the following which allows me to pass in a parameter to specify a suffix to the service name on the command line. It also allows the designer to function properly and could easily be adapted to override the entire name if necessary.
public partial class ProjectInstaller : System.Configuration.Install.Installer
{
protected override void OnBeforeInstall(IDictionary savedState)
{
base.OnBeforeInstall(savedState);
SetNames();
}
protected override void OnBeforeUninstall(IDictionary savedState)
{
base.OnBeforeUninstall(savedState);
SetNames();
}
private void SetNames()
{
this.serviceInstaller1.DisplayName = AddSuffix(this.serviceInstaller1.DisplayName);
this.serviceInstaller1.ServiceName = AddSuffix(this.serviceInstaller1.ServiceName);
}
private string AddSuffix(string originalName)
{
if (!String.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(this.Context.Parameters["ServiceSuffix"]))
return originalName + " - " + this.Context.Parameters["ServiceSuffix"];
else
return originalName;
}
}
With this in mind, I can do the following:
If I've called the service "Awesome Service" then I can install a UAT verison of the service as follows:
InstallUtil.exe /ServiceSuffix="UAT" MyService.exe
This will create the service with the name "Awesome Service - UAT". We've used this to run DEVINT, TESTING and ACCEPTANCE versions of the same service running side-by-side on a single machine. Each version has its own set of files/configs - I haven't tried this to install multiple services pointing at the same set of files.
NOTE: you have to use the same /ServiceSuffix parameter to uninstall the service, so you'd execute the following to uninstall:
InstallUtil.exe /u /ServiceSuffix="UAT" MyService.exe

Answer 7

What I've done to make this work is to store the service name and display name in an app.config for my service. Then in my installer class, I load the app.config as an XmlDocument and use xpath to get the values out and apply them to ServiceInstaller.ServiceName and ServiceInstaller.DisplayName, before calling InitializeComponent(). This assumes you're not already setting these properties in InitializeComponent(), in which case, the settings from your config file will be ignored. The following code is what I'm calling from my installer class constructor, before InitializeComponent():
private void SetServiceName()
{
string configurationFilePath = Path.ChangeExtension(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location, "exe.config");
XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
doc.Load(configurationFilePath);
XmlNode serviceName = doc.SelectSingleNode("/xpath/to/your/#serviceName");
XmlNode displayName = doc.SelectSingleNode("/xpath/to/your/#displayName");
if (serviceName != null && !string.IsNullOrEmpty(serviceName.Value))
{
this.serviceInstaller.ServiceName = serviceName.Value;
}
if (displayName != null && !string.IsNullOrEmpty(displayName.Value))
{
this.serviceInstaller.DisplayName = displayName.Value;
}
}
I don't believe reading the configuration file directly from ConfigurationManager.AppSettings or something similar will work as when the installer runs, it's run in the context of InstallUtil.exe, not your service's .exe. You may be able to do something with ConfigurationManager.OpenExeConfiguration, however in my case, this didn't work as I was trying to get at a custom configuration section that was not loaded.

Answer 8

Just to improve perfect answer of #chris.house.00 this, you can consider following function to read from your app settings:
public void GetServiceAndDisplayName(out string serviceNameVar, out string displayNameVar)
{
string configurationFilePath = Path.ChangeExtension(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location, "exe.config");
XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
doc.Load(configurationFilePath);
XmlNode serviceName = doc.SelectSingleNode("//appSettings//add[#key='ServiceName']");
XmlNode displayName = doc.SelectSingleNode("//appSettings//add[#key='DisplayName']");
if (serviceName != null && (serviceName.Attributes != null && (serviceName.Attributes["value"] != null)))
{
serviceNameVar = serviceName.Attributes["value"].Value;
}
else
{
serviceNameVar = "Custom.Service.Name";
}
if (displayName != null && (displayName.Attributes != null && (displayName.Attributes["value"] != null)))
{
displayNameVar = displayName.Attributes["value"].Value;
}
else
{
displayNameVar = "Custom.Service.DisplayName";
}
}

Answer 9

I had a similar situation, where i to needed have a previous service, and an updated service running side by side on the same server. (It was more than just a database change, it was code changes as well). So I couldn't just run the same .exe twice. I needed a new .exe that was compiled with new DLLs but from the same project. Just changing the service name and display name of the service did not work for me, I still received the "service already existed error" which I believe is because I am using a Deployment Project. What finally did work for me is within my Deployment Project Properties there is a property called "ProductCode" which is a Guid.
After that, rebuilding the Setup Project to a new .exe or .msi installed successfully.

Answer 10

The simplest approach is is based the service name on the dll name:
string sAssPath = System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location;
string sAssName = System.IO.Path.GetFileNameWithoutExtension(sAssPath);
if ((this.ServiceInstaller1.ServiceName != sAssName)) {
this.ServiceInstaller1.ServiceName = sAssName;
this.ServiceInstaller1.DisplayName = sAssName;
}