How do I detect that my application is running as service or in an interactive session?

Question

I'm writing an application that is able to run as a service or standalone but I want to detect if the application was executed as a service or in a normal user session.

Answer 1

If this is a C++ application, somewhere in your startup code you have to call StartServiceCtrlDispatcher. If it fails and GetLastError() returns ERROR_FAILED_SERVICE_CONTROLLER_CONNECT, the app has not been started as a service.