Question

I’m trying to execute a .bat script in a C# windows service but it doesn’t seem to be working.

So the script I am trying to execute, startup.bat, in turn calls another script, call catalina.bat ..., which in turn executes start java ...

I can execute startup.bat manually but I want to run it as a Windows service. When I try to do that in a C# windows service application, nothing seems to happen. My Windows service code looks like this:

public class MyService : ServiceBase
{
    public static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        ServiceBase.Run(new MyService());
    }

    protected override void OnStart(string[] args)
    {
        base.OnStart(args);
        this.RunScript(@"bin\startup.bat");
        Thread.Sleep(1000);
    }

    protected override void OnStop()
    {
        base.OnStop();
        this.RunScript(@"bin\shutdown.bat");
        Thread.Sleep(1000);
    }

    private void RunScript(string processFileName)
    {
        var startInfo = new ProcessStartInfo
        {
            FileName = "cmd.exe",
            Arguments = "/C " + Path.Combine(@"C:\server", processFileName),
            CreateNoWindow = true,
            ErrorDialog = false,
            RedirectStandardError = true,
            RedirectStandardOutput = true,
            UseShellExecute = false,
            WindowStyle = ProcessWindowStyle.Hidden
        };

        startInfo.EnvironmentVariables.Add("CATALINA_HOME", @"c:\server");

        var process = new Process();
        process.StartInfo = startInfo;
        process.Start();
    }
}

I don’t understand why this doesn’t execute. What am I doing wrong?

And yes, you may notice I’m trying to launch Tomcat on Windows as a service with C#. Well I’m doing that because I haven’t been able to use tomcat7.exe for various reasons but it’s probably better to not ask why I’m doing such things. Whatever the reason is, what I’m doing here should also work, shouldn’t it?

Update in response to Gabe’s suggestion:

If I set UseShellExecute = true I get an exception:

System.InvalidOperationException: The Process object must have the UseShellExecute property set to false in order to redirect IO streams.
    at System.Diagnostics.Process.StartWithShellExecuteEx(ProcessStartInfo startInfo)
    at System.Diagnostics.Process.Start()
    at MyService.RunScript(String processFileName)

So I set RedirectStandardError and RedirectStandardOutput to false, which yields this error:

System.InvalidOperationException: The Process object must have the UseShellExecute property set to false in order to use environment variables.
  at System.Diagnostics.Process.StartWithShellExecuteEx(ProcessStartInfo startInfo)
  at System.Diagnostics.Process.Start()
  at MyService.RunScript(String processFileName)

argh! I feel exasperated!

Answer 1

To close the loop on this, the problem was indeed Windows security permission issues.

The suggestion made here seemed to resolve my issue.