windows service vs scheduled task

What's the overhead of starting and quitting the app? Every two minutes is pretty often. A service would probably let the system run more smoothly than executing your application so frequently.

Both solutions can run the program when user isn't logged in, so no difference there. Writing a service is somewhat more involved than a regular desktop app, though - you may need a separate GUI client that will communicate with the service app via TCP/IP, named pipes, etc.

From a user's POV, I wonder which is easier to control. Both services and scheduled tasks are pretty much out of reach for most non-technical users, i.e. they won't even realize they exist and can be configured / stopped / rescheduled and so on.

A Windows service doesn't need to have anyone logged in, and Windows has facilities for stopping, starting, and logging the service results.

A scheduled task doesn't require you to learn how to write a Windows service.

1. It's easier to set up and lock down windows services with the correct permissions.
2. Services are more "visible" meaning that everyone (ie: techs) knows where to look.

Why not provide both?

In the past I've put the 'core' bits in a library and wrapped a call to Whatever.GoGoGo() in both a service as well as a console app.

With something you're firing off every two minutes the odds are decent it's not doing much (e.g. just a "ping" type function). The wrappers shouldn't have to contain much more than a single method call and some logging.

Generally, the core message is and should be that the code itself must be executable from each and every "trigger/client". So it should not be rocket science to switch from one to the other approach.

In the past we used more or less always Windows Services but since also more and more of our customers switch to Azure step by step and the swap from a Console App (deployed as a Scheduled Task) to a WebJob in Azure is much easier than from a Windows Service, we focus on Scheduled Tasks for now. If we run into limitations, we just ramp up the Windows Service project and call the same logic from there (as long as customers are working OnPrem..) :)

BR, y

Windows services want more patience until it's done. It has a bit hard debug and install. It's faceless. If you need a task which must be done in every second, minute or hour, you should choice Windows Service.

Scheduled Task is quickly developed and has a face. If you need a daily or weekly task, you can use Scheduled Task.