Question

I would like to write an application in C# which runs in the background most of the time. It should only show a TrayIcon. For this I found a tutorial: http://www.simple-talk.com/dotnet/.net-framework/creating-tray-applications-in-.net-a-practical-guide/

But how can I tell my program to run every hour? Whats the best way to implement this. A timer? The app should use as less as possible resources while doing nothing.

thanks

Answer 1

Question: is the program you’re doing a “user space” program, or should it run even if a user is not logged in? In other words, should it always be on?

Basically, are you doing something useful to a user, or is this for a business task like archiving a web server’s log files to database?

If it’s the former, keep doing your notification area program. If it’s the latter, skip the notification area program and build a full-out Windows Service.

In both cases, use a timer; resource use will be minimal.