Question

I have a c# windows service application that is crashing without throwing an exception when processing certain files using a third-party .dll. What I decided to do was create a new console application which replicates a small portion of the windows service code, particularly the part the causes the service to crash. What I want to do is call the new .exe program from the windows service, and if it crashes, I throw an exception myself.

So, I need to call this .exe program (not in the background as I can’t allow the windows service to continue until I know the file to be processed is safe), and then determine if it exited successfully or not. How do I go about doing this? The examples I’ve seen run the .exe in a background process which is not what I want.

Thanks.

Answer 1

Look at this SO answer how to run console application from windows service. Just add WaitForExit, like this :

ProcessStartInfo info = new ProcessStartInfo(@"c:\myprogram.exe");
info.UseShellExecute = false;
info.RedirectStandardError = true;
info.RedirectStandardInput = true;
info.RedirectStandardOutput = true;
info.CreateNoWindow = true;
info.ErrorDialog = false;
info.WindowStyle = ProcessWindowStyle.Hidden;

Process process = Process.Start(info);
process.WaitForExit();

In console application you can set exit code if you exit with Environment.Exit(statusCode) or return int value from main function of console applicaiton. Or you can write to output and then in your service examine exit code (process.ExitCode) or output stream so you can determine is process was exited successfully.