I am trying to start a windows application from a windows Service using the below code
Process.Start(#"filename.exe");
In windows 7 I receive a popup that says, "A program running on this computer is trying to display a message"
You cannot start an interactive application from a Windows Service. This was changed in Windows Vista and 7.
Some other advice was given in this Stack Overflow answer on the same subject.
When I've needed to do this, I had to change my Windows Service to a Console Application, and invoked it in that manner.
A work-around I found for this issue was to use the windows task scheduler. You can schedule the application to run some amount of seconds later by creating a batch file.
At my previous company we had this issue and we wrote a console app that ran in the sys tray and acted as a bridge from the service to the desktop. Basically via remoting (I'd use WCF now of course) we let the service request that the console app start up another application.
Related
I'm working on creating custom Cortana commands. The commands are registered and executed using a Universal Windows Platform Application. (GitHub)
For instance, I've registered the following command
<Command Name="ShutDown">
<ListenFor>Shut down</ListenFor>
<Navigate/>
</Command>
To run this function in a UWP application
static async void ShutDown()
{
var dialog = new MessageDialog("This is where I would shut the computer down.");
await dialog.ShowAsync();
//System.Diagnostics.Process.Start("Shutdown", "-s -t 10");
}
But after setting this up I learned System.Diagnostics.Process isn't supported in UWP.
The custom commands I want to run involve some sort of execution such as launching external programs, running other scripts, or opening websites.
It makes sense that UWP doesn't support them given that it's universal and an XBox or a phone might not be able to do these, but I was hoping there was some alternative or hacky way to accomplish this on a Windows 10 PC.
Is there a way for me to execute Process commands or something else with similar functionality in a UWP application? It seems like even though I can get Cortana to execute my C# code, UWP doesn't support much that would be useful in this situation.
Thanks in advance.
There are - limited - ways to achieve similar behavior.
You could use LaunchUri to trigger other apps which registered for a certain URI-Scheme. This should work for your webbrowser scenario. More details here:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/windows.system.launcher.launchuriasync.aspx
You could trigger another app and get results back from it using LaunchForResults. The called app has to support this. More details here:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/mt269386.aspx
You could trigger App Services provided by another app. The called app has to support this. The app service will be executed in background. ( I think this is pretty cool.) More details here:http://blogs.msdn.com/b/mvpawardprogram/archive/2015/06/11/writing-windows-10-app-services-in-javascript.aspx
This is a little hacky: I'm not sure if this still works but it did work for Windows 8.1: You could create a so called "Brokered Component". This allows you to trigger everything from you app on you machine, but you won't be able to publish a brokered component into the store. This also allowed Process.Start() on Windows 8.1. It only worked for sideloaded apps. I'm not sure if it still works on Windows 10.
More info here: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/dn630195.aspx
Summary:
Starting another app is pretty easy as long as the target app registered as app service or registered a protocol handler (Uri scheme).
Starting scripts or other *.exe is impossible if option 4 doesn't work any longer.
With the Windows 10 Anniversary Update (1607) there is an option to enable this scenario on PC. With this API in the Desktop Extension SDK you can launch a fulltrust process that runs at the full user privileges:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/uwp/api/Windows.ApplicationModel.FullTrustProcessLauncher
This way you can light it up on the platforms where it is supported, i.e. PCs running 1607 or above. And your app will still be universal:
if (ApiInformation.IsApiContractPresent("Windows.ApplicationModel.FullTrustAppContract", 1, 0))
{
await FullTrustProcessLauncher.LaunchFullTrustProcessForCurrentAppAsync();
}
I have an Windows service.It uses Filewatcher API to watch for any new files and start processing the file.
Suppose If i want to stop the file processing during runtime (Note I want to stop the active file processing)how can I do that from any external windows application.
Note: Already I am communicating with the windows service from the external windows application
Communicate to the windows service to stop processing and set FileSystsemWatcher.EnableRaisingEvents to false. When you want to continue processing, communicate to the service and set it back to true.
Without more detail about how you're actually communicating between processes, I can't provide much more detail.
If you external application is a .NET windows application, please refer to the following SO Question
How to send a custom command to a .Net windows Service from.Net code?
I have purchased a license of AddTapi.NET to simplify my development using TAPI in a product that runs as a Windows service. I was able to use the TAPI in a Windows GUI and console application and ported the code into my Windows service. At that point, I noted that the code which uses the speech API such as TapiCall.Speak or TapiCall.Play (wavefile) was not generating sound on the phone line and was remaining silent.
There are a couple of previous questions that may relate to my issue.
Question: Playing Voice over a modem from a Windows service indicated a problem using speech that was resolved by spawning a GUI thread in the Windows service. I attempted to do this but was unsuccessful in getting the speech to be heard on the phone.
Question: Access violation with Tapi in Windows service seems to indicate an initial problem with TAPI in a service yet was resolved by using the AddTapi product. The ticket does not explicitly mention the use of the speech API though (SAPI)
I am programming in C# using Visual Studio 2010 and .NET 4.0. I am trying to get this to work on Windows 7. I received an e-mail from AddTapi that indicated that Microsoft changed the security to disallow use of the voice subsystem from services in Win 2008 Server, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. The above articles seem to indicate some success with AddTapi although it may not be on Windows 7.
Given that the main system that I am working with is a Windows service (and child processes), what would seem to be the best approach to getting the speech to work. If I put the SAPI code in a console application, I would like this to be managed without requiring a user to be actively logged onto the computer. There is nothing graphical about my TAPI code. Should I take an approach similar to Article: Launching an interactive process and spawn an interactive process? Have there been any success stories using TAPI speech in a Windows service?
We resolved this problem in AddTapi.NET 5.0. Version 5.0 can use Speech API (TapiCall.Speak and TapiCall.Play) in Windows service applications. There is no need to use a separate process and the service can run under default Local Service account.
For everyone who doesn't use AddTapi.NET, the key is to use SAPI5 SpVoice object speaking to a custom stream. You cannot instantiate SpAudio or SpMMAudioOut objects in Windows service, so you will need to implement your own stream class and set SpVoice's output to that stream.
I had the same requirements as your project (TAPI in a Windows Service using AddTapi.NET). I also received the same response. I tried some of the other posts out there recommending that I run the application in a separate thread so I tool my entire solution and converted it to a WPF Application with a simple page that would never appear but had all the AddTapi configuration happening in the constructor.
NO SUCCESS.
The application would run fine when run from the WPF application but when the WPF page was instantiated in the STAThread enabled thread Play and Speak still would not work. I have been looking all over for an answer on this but there isn't anything but others stating that there really is no solution (no real solution).
Running my application through a seperate process simply won't cut it and since running in a seperate thread won't work either I'm going to have to consider running this application as a regular windows app (will require logon).
Wish I had a solution, sorry.
I have a tasks table in my db. I want to read data from this table and run tasks. Which one is better whether to have it as windows service or a console application running. The server on which this will be run will not be shutdown
You most likely want to use a windows service.
Benefits:
You can control the user (and the rights associated with this user account) which starts the process
An automatically started process means the desktop need to be on, not user logged, for the service to run
A policy on failure can be defined (try to restart n times run a specific program if fails)
A dependency can be defined (if you depend on other sevices)
You can wrap your script in an invisible window
You can easily start/stop/restart the script (net start <scriptname>)
Quoted from here: What is the benefit of developing the application as a windows service?
A running console app is not an option, as the others have stated.
If you just want the task run every x minutes the simplest option is a scheduled task using a console application.
A windows service has it's benefits, but is a little bit more complex to implement and deploy. However if your app needs to be 'always on' (e.g. need to react to external triggers, listen to message queue, ...), a windows service is the only option. As the others have said, the services infrastructure also provides more management capabilities, built-in integration with the event log, restart and failover options...
Windows service, because it does not require logged-in user.
I would say; Windows Services.
In that case (among other things) you don't need a user to be logged in, you can configure it in a matter to restart automatically if it shuts down for some reason and you (could) have extensive rights throughout the system.
Windows service generally. Console app will need to be restarted if the server reboots while a windows service can start automatically.
You should look at: https://github.com/thedavejay/Self-Installing-Windows-Service
It allows you to debug as a console application and then install it as a windows service.
I wrote a windows form application running in my local system. I wanna make it invictible. I mean, I want to the users cannot kill the process using task manager or any other third party application. So I wrote a windows service to run this application on startup. I thought I need to run windows service as SYSTEM but how can I do that ?
Is there any spesific suggestion for this kind a situation ?
I also had the same problem with an application at work, which the users shouldn't be able to close.
You have to allow the servie Allow service to interact with desktop.
Heres an example how to do this while installing the service: http://www.codeproject.com/KB/install/cswindowsservicedesktop.aspx
Now you are able the launch a GUI application from the service, for the current logged in user. You should look in a intervall if the process for the current user is still running, if not just start it again.
See here for current user processes: http://www.codeproject.com/KB/cs/processownersid.aspx