This is one of those things I’ve been wanting to do for a long time for my Event Scavenger pet project. Basically the requirement is this:

“Being able to have one executable (.exe) file that can be used multiple times for different service instances.”

It turns out it is not too hard to achieve this using C# and .Net 4.0 (might even work with older frameworks but haven’t tried it). It is an extension of my already improved self registering Windows Service extensions which make it possible to simply run the Service exe with a ‘-install’ command line parameter. With the latest additions a ‘named’ instance can also be specified. This means, in the Service Manager of Windows you can see the Service executable plus a command line parameter that makes it unique. It allows you to stop/start/manage it separately as an entity. This is exactly the same as how Microsoft BizTalk Server implements ‘Host Instances’.

Now lets get dirty with some code samples. The first code snippet shows (an example) part of main program.cs that handles the command like parameters.

string collectorName = "Default";		

if (args.Length > 0)
{                
  if (args[0].ToUpper() == "-INSTALL")
  {
              string serviceParameters = "";
    if (args.Length > 1)
    {
      collectorName = args[1];
                  serviceName = "Event Reaper - " + collectorName;
      displayName = "Event Reaper - " + collectorName;
                  serviceParameters = "\"-Collector:" + collectorName + "\"";
    }
    if (args.Length > 2)
      displayName = args[2];
    if (args.Length > 3)
      description = args[3];

    HenIT.Services.ServiceRegister.InstallService(
      System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location,
      serviceName,
      displayName,
      description,
                  serviceParameters);
    return;
  }
  else if (args[0].ToUpper() == "-UNINSTALL")
  {
    if (args.Length > 1)
    {
      collectorName = args[1];
                  serviceName = "Event Reaper - " + collectorName;
    }
    HenIT.Services.ServiceRegister.UnInstallService(
       System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location,
                 serviceName);
    return;
  }
  collectorName = HenIT.CommandLineUtils.GetCommand(args, "", "-Collector:");
}
if (collectorName.Length == 0)
  collectorName = Properties.Settings.Default.CollectorName;

ServiceBase[] servicesToRun;
servicesToRun = new ServiceBase[] 
{ 
  new EventReaperService() { CollectorName = collectorName }
};
ServiceBase.Run(servicesToRun);

All this section does is to check for the “-INSTALL” or “-UNINSTALL” parameters and then call the helper class that does the registration/unregistration. The Display name of the service instance is always prefixed with “Event Reaper – ” to grouped all instances visually together in Service manager.

InstallService

The ServiceRegister class only has two methods. InstallService is the first one and handles all the bits to gather login details, set properties and then register the service.

public static bool InstallService(string serviceExePath,
        string serviceName,
        string displayName,
        string description,
        string serviceParameters)
{
    bool success = false;
    try
    {
        string workingPath = System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(serviceExePath);
        string logPath = System.IO.Path.Combine(workingPath, "Install.log");
        ServiceStartMode startmode = ServiceStartMode.Automatic;
        ServiceAccount account = ServiceAccount.LocalService;
        string username = "";
        string password = "";
        bool delayedStart = true;

        InstallerForm installerForm = new InstallerForm();
        installerForm.StartType = ServiceStartMode.Automatic;
        installerForm.AccountType = ServiceAccount.User;
        installerForm.BringToFront();
        installerForm.TopMost = true;
        if (installerForm.ShowDialog() == System.Windows.Forms.DialogResult.OK)
        {
            startmode = installerForm.StartType;
            account = installerForm.AccountType;
            delayedStart = installerForm.DelayedStart;
            if (installerForm.AccountType == ServiceAccount.User)
            {
                username = installerForm.UserName;
                password = installerForm.Password;
            }


            Hashtable savedState = new Hashtable();
            ProjectInstallerForHelper myProjectInstaller = new ProjectInstallerForHelper(delayedStart);
            InstallContext myInstallContext = new InstallContext(logPath, new string[] { });
            myProjectInstaller.Context = myInstallContext;
            myProjectInstaller.ServiceName = serviceName;
            myProjectInstaller.DisplayName = displayName;
            myProjectInstaller.Description = description;
            myProjectInstaller.StartType = startmode;
            myProjectInstaller.Account = account;
            if (account == ServiceAccount.User)
            {
                myProjectInstaller.ServiceUsername = username;
                myProjectInstaller.ServicePassword = password;
            }
            myProjectInstaller.Context.Parameters["AssemblyPath"] = serviceExePath + " " + serviceParameters;

            myProjectInstaller.Install(savedState);
            success = true;
        }
    }
    catch (Exception ex)
    {
        System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show(ex.Message, "Install service", System.Windows.Forms.MessageBoxButtons.OK, System.Windows.Forms.MessageBoxIcon.Error);
    }
    return success;
}

The class InstallerForm is simply a plain Windows Form to capture service properties like the username/password etc. I’m not showing its code here now. AssemblyPath is the actual property that Service manager use to launch the executable plus its parameters.

ProjectInstallerForHelper is an utility class that simply inherits from System.Configuration.Install.Installer. It looks like this:

internal class ProjectInstallerForHelper : System.Configuration.Install.Installer
{
    private ServiceProcessInstaller processInstaller;
    private System.ServiceProcess.ServiceInstaller serviceInstaller;

    public ProjectInstallerForHelper(bool delayedAutoStart = true)
    {
        processInstaller = new ServiceProcessInstaller();
        serviceInstaller = new System.ServiceProcess.ServiceInstaller();
        serviceInstaller.DelayedAutoStart = delayedAutoStart;

        Installers.AddRange(new Installer[] {
                processInstaller,
                serviceInstaller});
    }

    #region Added properties
    public string ServiceName
    {
        get { return serviceInstaller.ServiceName; }
        set { serviceInstaller.ServiceName = value; }
    }
    public string DisplayName
    {
        get { return serviceInstaller.DisplayName; }
        set { serviceInstaller.DisplayName = value; }
    }
    public string Description
    {
        get { return serviceInstaller.Description; }
        set { serviceInstaller.Description = value; }
    }
    public ServiceStartMode StartType
    {
        get { return serviceInstaller.StartType; }
        set { serviceInstaller.StartType = value; }
    }
    public ServiceAccount Account
    {
        get { return processInstaller.Account; }
        set { processInstaller.Account = value; }
    }
    public string ServiceUsername
    {
        get { return processInstaller.Username; }
        set { processInstaller.Username = value; }
    }
    public string ServicePassword
    {
        get { return processInstaller.Password; }
        set { processInstaller.Password = value; }
    }
    #endregion
}

UnInstallService

This is essentially just the reverse of InstallService.

public static bool UnInstallService(string serviceExePath, string serviceName)
{
    bool success = false;
    try
    {
        ServiceController sc = new ServiceController(serviceName);
        if (sc == null)
        {
            System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show("Service not installed or accessible!", "Stopping service", System.Windows.Forms.MessageBoxButtons.OK, System.Windows.Forms.MessageBoxIcon.Warning);
            return true;
        }
        if (sc.Status == ServiceControllerStatus.Running || sc.Status == ServiceControllerStatus.Paused)
        {
            sc.Stop();
        }
    }
    catch (Exception ex)
    {
        if (!ex.Message.Contains("was not found on computer"))
        {
            System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show(ex.Message, "Stopping service", System.Windows.Forms.MessageBoxButtons.OK, System.Windows.Forms.MessageBoxIcon.Error);
        }
        else
            return true;
    }
    try
    {
        string workingPath = System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(serviceExePath);
        string logPath = System.IO.Path.Combine(workingPath, "Install.log");

        ServiceInstaller myServiceInstaller = new ServiceInstaller();
        InstallContext Context = new InstallContext(logPath, null);
        myServiceInstaller.Context = Context;
        myServiceInstaller.ServiceName = serviceName;
        myServiceInstaller.Uninstall(null);
        success = true;
    }
    catch (Exception ex)
    {
        System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show(ex.Message, "Uninstall service", System.Windows.Forms.MessageBoxButtons.OK, System.Windows.Forms.MessageBoxIcon.Error);
    }
    return success;
}

Summary

And this is basically the whole thing that allows you to create a Windows Service in C# that can handle multiple instances. There are a few things to keep in mind like the fact that all instances share the same config file unless you make a physical copy of the exe and config file to another directory and register it from there. Using this you can multiple services using different config all running side by side not affecting each other (hopefully hehe)