Windows Service: How to do("What can be done with them?");

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I recently learnt how to create windows service.
(Simple Windows Service Sample[^])

But, however, I have a question: What do you use them for? ... and HOW?

Of course we see a lot of services on windows for different purposes.
I just wanted to know how to do something other than a typical "Hello World"-like service.
For this reason I also wanted to know what ever can be done with services.

Posted 9-Oct-10 7:06am

Ashok Gowtham

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Sandeep Mewara · Accepted Answer · 2010-10-09T11:19:00

Solution 1

Ok. Lets pick an example, a real life scenario:
You need to send an email every monday to all the users registered to a given webstite. You can have this windows service in place that will keep running - every monday it will automatically send the email with content specified. You don't need to have any manul intervention in between.

Posted 9-Oct-10 11:19am

Sandeep Mewara

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Ashok Gowtham 9-Oct-10 19:12pm

Alright, that seems like a good task for a service.
Cab you please let me know how to 'connect' a service with a normal forms application.

Jörgen Sigvardsson · Accepted Answer · 2010-10-09T23:47:00

Services, unlike normal programs, need not run in the context of an interactive session. So whenever you need something to be done, without the need of having anyone log in, a service is a good way to deal with the problem.

Of course, services come with a whole different bag of problems: you can't (easily) indicate errors to users, because there's not necessarily a user logged in (which is often the case with servers).

If you ever have to write a service, make it also run as an application (I believe there is an article on it here at CP). It makes development and debugging a lot easier.