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Asked: 2026-05-13T22:33:17+00:00

I need to create a service in .NET that maintains (inner) state in-memory, spawns

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I need to create a service in .NET that maintains (inner) state in-memory, spawns multiple threads and is generally long-running. There are a lot options –

  • Good-old Windows Service
  • Windows Communication Services
  • Windows Workflow Foundation

I really don’t know which to choose. Most of the functionality is in a library used by this service, so the service itself is rather simple.

On one hand, it’s important the service host is as close to “simply working” as possible, which excludes Windows Service. On the other hand, it’s important that the service is not taken down by the host just because there’s no external activity, which makes WCF kind o’ “scary”. As for WF, it’s strongest selling point is the ability to create processes as, um…, workflows, which is something I don’t need nor want.

To sum it up, the plethora of Microsoft technologies got me a bit confused.

I’d appreciate help regarding the pros and cons of each solution (or other’s I’ve failed to mention) for the problem of a stateful, long running service in .NET

Thanks,
Asaf

P.S.,
I’m using .NET 4.

EDIT:

  • What I mean by the host “simply working” is, for example, that the service I create be reactivated if it crashes.
  • I guess the reason for this question is that I’ve created Windows Services in the past (I think it was in plain C++ with Win32 API), and I don’t want to miss out on something simpler if there’s is such as thing.

Thanks for all the replies thus far!
Asaf.

EDIT 2:

I’ll use a Windows Service, and might host a WCF service inside it to allow other processes to communicate with it.

Thanks,
Asaf

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Based on your description, your best bet is #1, a Good Old Windows Service. You can assign work to it, it can run as long as you want, and it can spawn threads. Not sure what you mean by “simply working,” or why that puts a Windows Service out of the running.

    You could, alternatively, make a simple console app, but you’d have to handle the management (restarts, etc) yourself.

    WCF is essentially .NET remoting over the web, it doesn’t handle long-running processes by itself. Workflow Foundation can handle long-running workflows, but only that.

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