Question

I currently have a single application that needs to be started from a windows service that i am coding in .net 3.5. This application is currently running as the user who ran the service, in my case the SYSTEM user. If running as the SYSTEM user it does not show the application to the users desktop. Thoughts? advice?

//constructor
    private Process ETCHNotify = new Process();

//StartService()     
    ETCHNotify.StartInfo.FileName = baseDir + "\\EtchNotify.exe";
    ETCHNotify.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = false;

//BackgroundWorkerThread_DoWork()
    if (!systemData.GetUserName().Equals(""))
    {
        // start ETCHNotify
        try {
            ETCHNotify.Start();
        }
            catch (Exception ex)
        {
            systemData.Run("ERR: Notify can't start: " + ex.Message);
        }
    }

I only execute the try/catch if the function i have written GetUserName() (which determines the username of the user running explorer.exe) is not null

again to reiterate: desired functionality is that this starts ETCHNotify in a state that allows it to interact with the currently logged in user as determined by GetUserName()

Answer 1

Ultimately in order to solve this i took the advice of @marco and the posts he mentioned. I have created the service to be entirely independent of the tray application that interacts with the user. I did however install the Tray application via registry ‘start up’ methods with the service. The Service installer will now install the application which interacts with the user as well… This was the safest and most complete method.

thanks for your help everyone.