Question

I have a windows service that has it’s name set by an app.config.
I set the name as follows:

The ServiceBase.SerivceName is set on the Service class constructor (I have removed the setting of the ServiceName in the Service.Designer):

ServiceName = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings.Get("ServiceName");

The ServiceInstaller sets the DisplayName and ServiceName like this:

ServiceInstaller.DisplayName = config.AppSettings.Settings["ServiceName"].Value;
ServiceInstaller.ServiceName = ServiceInstaller.DisplayName;

All works as expected, so the service is installed fine alongside a duplicate service.
They have different names and different locations.
The appear as seperate entries in the Services list.

But I can only start one service at a time. The error I get on trying to start the second service is the unhelpful:

The service is not responding to the control function.

There are 2 System Events that get logged when trying to run:

A timeout was reached (30000 milliseconds) while waiting for the Blah Service service to connect.  

The Blah Service service failed to start due to the following error:
The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion.

Any help gratefully received.

Thanks.

Answer 1

In the absence of sufficent info to offer an answer to the problem at hand, I suggest using http://topshelf-project.com/ – it makes installing, configuring and debugging windows services in .NET a breeze.