Question

I want to set the user account for Windows Service even before installing.
I am doing it by adding code in project installer.

this.serviceProcessInstaller1.Account = System.ServiceProcess.ServiceAccount.User;
this.serviceProcessInstaller1.Password = ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings[“password”];
this.serviceProcessInstaller1.Username = ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings[“username”];

Still its prompting for Username and password. Looks like the configuration file is not getting ready by the time the installation is done.

How I can i pull the username and password from configuration file instead of hardcoding it?

Answer 1

Well, I’m at a loss to say why the AppSettings values are not readable in the traditional manner while the installer is running. I tried it myself and ran into the same problem you are having. However, I was able to get around the problem by loading the configuration file as a regular XML file and reading it that way. Try this:

XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
doc.Load(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location + ".config");

XmlElement appSettings = (XmlElement)doc.DocumentElement.GetElementsByTagName("appSettings")[0];

string username = null;
string password = null;

foreach (XmlElement setting in appSettings.GetElementsByTagName("add"))
{
    string key = setting.GetAttribute("key");
    if (key == "username") username = setting.GetAttribute("value");
    if (key == "password") password = setting.GetAttribute("value");
}

serviceProcessInstaller1.Account = ServiceAccount.User;
serviceProcessInstaller1.Username = username;
serviceProcessInstaller1.Password = password;