How can I run a CLI Application as a Windows Service?

Question

Say I have a third party Application that does background work, but prints out all errors and messages to the console. This means, that currently, we have to keep a user logged on to the server, and restart the application (double-click) every time we reboot.

Not so very cool.

I was kind of sure, that there was an easy way to do this - a generic service wrapper, that can be configured with a log file for stdout and stderr.

I did check svchost.exe, but according to this site, its only for DLL stuff. Pity.

EDIT: The application needs to be started from a batch file. FireDaemon seems to do the trick, but I think it is a bit overkill, for something that can be done in <10 lines of python code... Oh well, Not Invented Here...

Answer 1

Check out srvany.exe from the Resource Kit. This will let run anything as a service.

You can pass parameters in the service definition to your executable via srvany.exe so you could run a batch file as a service by seting the registry as follows:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MyService\Parameters]
"Application"="C:\\Windows\\System32\\cmd.exe"
"AppParameters"="/C C:\\My\\Batch\\Script.cmd"
"AppDirectory"="C:\\My\\Batch"

Note: if you set up these keys in RegEdit rather than using a file you only need single backslashes in the values.

Answer 2

I'd recommend NSSM: The Non-Sucking Service Manager.

• 32/64-bit EXEs
• Public Domain (!)
• Properly implements service stop messages, and sends the proper signal to your applications for graceful shutdown.