Debugging windows services

Question

I have created a windows service and installed it manually. Later started the service from Services tool. Now I want to dubug the windows service application from Visual st

Answer 1

This doesn't answer the exact question, but for what it's worth, I have found the easiest way to develop and debug a windows service is to put all of the logic into a class library and then call the logic from either a windows service (in production) or from a regular windows form (during development). The windows form would have a Start and Stop button which would simulate the start and stop behavior of the service.

To make it easy to switch between the two modes, I just use a command line parameter and handle that in the Main method like this:

static class Program
{
    /// 

    /// The main entry point for the application.
    /// 
    private static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        if (args.Length > 0 && args[0] == "/form")
        {
            var form = new MainForm();
            Application.Run(form);
            return;
        }

        var servicesToRun = new ServiceBase[]
        {
            new BackgroundService()
        };

        ServiceBase.Run(servicesToRun);
    }
}

Then in the "Command line arguments" field of the Visual Studio project properties, you can just add the "/form" parameter, and it will always pop up the form when debugging locally. This way you don't have to worry about attaching to a process or anything like that. You just click Debug as usual, and you're good to go.