Question

One of my application tasks is to get the current system date and compares it with a stored date in my database,i want to make a thread that runs once the system starts in order to get the current date, in other words i want my application to work in the background once the system is started, how to do that,thanks.

Answer 1

Take a look at Apache Procrun. Its a Windows executable, that allows you to install / uninstall java programs as Windows services.

Installation of the service goes as follows (from the project site):

prunsrv //IS//TestService --DisplayName="Test Service" \
    --Classpath=myAwesomeService.jar \
    --Install=prunsrv.exe --Jvm=auto --StartMode=jvm --StopMode=jvm \
    --StartClass=my.awesome.package.MyStartClass --StartParams=arg1;arg2;arg3 \
    --StopClass=my.awesome.package.MyStopClass --StopParams=arg1#arg2

After that, you just start/stop the service using:

net start TestService
net stop TestService

or using Services view from My Computer.

Your start / stop classes should have main(String[] args) methods implemented that will handle starting / stopping of your thread.