Is there any quick way to, given an executable file, create a Windows service that, when started, launches it?
11 Answers
Same as Sergii Pozharov's answer, but with a PowerShell cmdlet:
New-Service -Name "MyService" -BinaryPathName "C:\Path\to\myservice.exe"
See New-Service for more customization.
This will only work for executables that already implement the Windows Services API.
I created the cross-platform Service Manager software a few years back so that I could start PHP and other scripting languages as system services on Windows, Mac, and Linux OSes:
https://github.com/cubiclesoft/service-manager
Service Manager is a set of precompiled binaries that install and manage a system service on the target OS using nearly identical command-line options (source code also available). Each platform does have subtle differences but the core features are mostly normalized.
If the child process dies, Service Manager automatically restarts it.
Processes that are started with Service Manager should periodically watch for two notification files to handle restart and reload requests but they don't necessarily have to do that. Service Manager will force restart the child process if it doesn't respond in a timely fashion to controlled restart/reload requests.
You can check out my small free utility for service create\edit\delete operations. Here is create example:
Go to Service -> Modify -> Create
Executable file (google drive): [Download]
Source code: [Download]
Blog post: [BlogLink]
Service editor class: WinServiceUtils.cs
Probably all your answers are better, but - just to be complete on the choice of options - I wanted to remind about old, similar method used for years:
SrvAny (installed by InstSrv)
as described here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/windows-client/deployment/create-user-defined-service
I have another method, using the open-source library called Topshelf. I used it in a c# project, but maybe its available in different programming languages.
Here's a video that explains how to use it a little. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y64L-3HKuP0
The crux of this issue for a lot of people is that you can't install any old .exe as a service unless you use the old method that Tomeg used. I couldn't find the windows nt toolkit that's needed to get that to work.
I was stuck in a corner and this was my way out.
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