Question

I have a WCF Service (with installer) that I have built and installed in Windows Services. Opened up Admin Tools, Services, and started the service without a problem.

So now I’m beginning a new project (a simple Windows forms app). I want to consume my new WCF, but have no idea how. I can’t seem to add a reference / add a service reference to it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Jason

Answer 1

When the Windows service hosting your WCF service is up and running and properly configured, you should be able to use either Visual Studio’s Add Service Reference or the command-line svcutil tool to connect to that service.

Just type in the address where the service lives.

This requires that your service has metadata exchange enabled (as a service behavior) as well as provides at least one MEX (Metadata Exchange) endpoint in its config. Do you have those available??

Service behavior:

<behaviors>
   <serviceBehaviors>
       <behavior name="mex">
           <serviceMetadata />
       </behavior>
   </serviceBehaviors>
</behaviors>

and then your service must reference this configuration.

Service config:

<services>
    <service name="YourService" 
        behaviorConfiguration="mex">  <!-- reference the service behavior with the serviceMetadata element ->
        <endpoint .... (your regular endpoint here)  />
        <endpoint name="mex"
            address="mex"
            binding="mexHttpBinding"
            contract="IMetadataExchange" />
    </service>
</services>