How to make Windows Service start as "Automatic (Delayed Start)"

Question

Scenario:

A WCF service running as a Windows Service. Account is "User".

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What is done:

I have overridden the OnBeforeInstall in the projectinstaller to be able to set username and password from a config file.

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What I would be able to do:

I'd like to be able to set the starttype as Automatic (Delayed Start)

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What I have tried:

I put the following coderow in the overridden OnBeforeInstall

serviceInstaller1.StartType = ServiceStartMode.Automatic + 1;

Figured I would trick the ServiceStartMode enum into representing Automatic (Delayed Start), didn't work. Haven't tried anything more simply because I couldn't find anything to try.

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What I have found on the net:

I found out that Automatic (Delayed Start) will be available in .NET 4, but that doesn't help me right now. MSDN I found out that DelayedAutoStart could be added to the service's configuration key, but this feels like a hack if I should do this from code. But maybe this is the only solution available for me at this point?

• WS2008: Startup Processes and Delayed Automatic Start

Any ideas?

Robert Persson, Sweden

Answer 1

Now that .NET 4.0 is here:

serviceInstaller1.StartType = ServiceStartMode.Automatic; serviceInstaller1.DelayedAutoStart = true; 

Answer 2

Your only other option is to use P/invoke to call ChangeServiceConfig2 with SERVICE_CONFIG_DELAYED_AUTO_START_INFO. But since you seem to be unwilling to add the registry entry, I doubt you would want to use P/invoke. There's no other way to do it from the .NET Framework (< 4.0).