scheduled task or windows service

Question

My team is having a debate which is better: a windows service or scheduled tasks. We have a server dedicated to running jobs and currently they are all scheduled tasks. Some jobs take files, rename them and place them in other directories on the network. Other jobs extract data from SQL, modify it, and ship it elsewhere. Other jobs ftp files out. There is a lot of variety, but all in all, they are fairly straightforward.

I am partial to having each of these run as a windows service instead of a scheduled task because it is so much easier to monitor a windows service than a scheduled task. Some are diametrically opposed. In the end, none of us have that much experience to provide actual factual comparisons between the two methods. I am looking for some feedback on what other have experienced.

Answer 1

If it runs constantly - windows service.

If it needs to be run at various intervals - scheduled task.

Answer 2

Scheduled Task -

1. When activity to be carried out on some fixed/predefined schedule.
2. It take less memory and resources of OS.
3. Not required installation.
4. It can have UI (eg. Send reminder mail to defaulters)

Windows Service -

1. When a continue monitoring is required.
2. It makes OS busy by consuming more.
3. Require install/uninstallation while changing version.
4. No UI at all (eg. Process a mail as soon as it arrives)

Use them wisely

Answer 3

Sceduling jobs with the build in functionality is a perfectly valid use. You would have to recreate the full functionality in order to create a good service, and unless you want to react to speciffic events, I see no reason to move a nightly job into a service.

Its different when you want to process a file after it was posted in a folder, thats something I would create a service for, thats using the filesystem watcher to monitor a folder.

I think its reinventing the wheel