Determining the reason why a .net windows-service won't start

Question

I am trying to determine why a .Net service that I can successfully install on a wide number of machines won't start on certain machines.

When the service is started on these machines the service instantly stops, so my assumptions are either that the users doesn't have sufficient privileges to install the service or that there is an issue with the service; however, both of these conditions are false (the service works and they have sufficient privileges).

What are some steps I should take to determine the reason the service won't start?

Answer 1

The Application event log should contain details of any .Net exceptions that occurred during service startup. This may help diagnose the problem.

Alternatively, you can add some debug code (or trace code) to your application startup and use debugview from Sysinternals to see where it gets to.