I want to pop a browser with a given url from within a windows service. Like so:
System.Diagnostics.Process.Start("http://www.venganza.org/");
Works fine when running in a console but not from within the service. No error messages, no exceptions, the Process.Start() command just seem to do nothing. It smells of some security issue, maybe something with the service properties and/or logon options? Annoying stuff this... Anybody? (Oh, and on windows 7/.NET framework 3.5.)
A service should never pop up anything to the user. Don't do this with a service.
You will problably need elevated rights to do this aswell. You will have to sign in as the user.
Even if you manage to do this, don't. This is not what services is ment for and it is really bad practise. If you really want someting to pop up, have a seperate process instead.
It is popping up, but on the Window Station associated with the service.
I would suggest that you tweak your design such that your service doesn't need to interact in this manner. There are ways to get it to appear on an interactive desktop (you'd have to cope with issues such as impersonating the relevant user, targeting the correct desktop if nobody is logged on or if more than one person is logged on, etc.)
Just on a side note Windows services aren't built for interactivity. They are used to process behind-the-scenes type stuff. However, have you tried enabling the Interact with Desktop option on the service itself?
Related
I've got one for you thats been bugging me for a bit.
If you run a Windows Service as Local System, how can that service display forms or prompts on the user desktop?
I tried this in one of my previous apps and couldn't get it to work; I settled on having an 'invisible' app running in the user context to handle any user interaction. But as time has passed, I've seen some apps that have nothing more than a service running as local system and yet they produce prompts and forms on the user desktop.
Thanks in advance for any info :)
I have a launch daemon that will need to spawn a tray icon in a users session on OSX. My current problem is: is there a way to get an event whenever a user logs in or logs out? Similar to using logind or consolekit on linux.
The tool you want is a LaunchAgent. LaunchAgents are automatically launched when a user logs in, and shut down when the log out. If you also have a LaunchDaemon, you can use a LaunchAgent to communicate to it from the user context. See Creating Launch Daemons and Agents for full details and how to set it up. Make sure to look at XPC services as well (in the same doc) to understand one way to communicate between processes. You can also use loopback networking, but XPC is more powerful and preferred when appropriate.
If you're building this kind of thing, you definitely want to read the entire Daemons and Services Programming Guide and also TN2083: Daemons and Agents. That tech note is probably the most important document you'll read for this kind of problem. OS X is not like Linux (or BSD) in this regard.
I am attempting to write a small, lightweight client, using vb.net winforms, that can install without needing elevated privileges. Before I ask my questions, let me give you a bit of an idea of what it is supposed to do.
The app will start when Windows loads, set like this from the install, with a system/notification tray icon that can be clicked on to load up specific functionality. The application install from a website, or possibly a file share, haven't quite decided yet. This client will initially request user credentials for one of our web programs, and it will talk to an already built web service to determine what functionalities of our services they have licensed access to. After this, credentials will be encrypted and saved to the users pc locally. Every five minutes, the client will pass the credentials to the websites they have access to and check to see the status of jobs that are being processed, and download available reports if needed.
So, here is what I am trying to understand. If I configure this app as a ClickOnce application, once it installs from the url or shared drive, the user will not need to do anything else, correct? Or do they have to visit that url every time they boot up to reinstall/run the client?
Another thing, I wanted to get some opinions on the best ways to do some of the things this app will be doing. I have a good idea of where I am going with it, but I have no idea of which solution to go with yet.
For instance, what is the best way to store user passed credentials on their system for a "remember me"?
Also, is the best way to have the client install with automatically starting on windows startup to configure it to create a shortcut of itself in the windows startup folder?
I am trying to keep this as lightweight as possible, and using a very small GUI, so it shouldn't be too intrusive, so any ideas on how to ensure that, while keeping it from needing admin privs to install, will also help.
If I configure this app as a ClickOnce application, once it installs
from the url or shared drive, the user will not need to do anything
else, correct? Or do they have to visit that url every time they boot
up to reinstall/run the client?
Well if they need to reinstall it, they would have to download the setup.exe file again, but why would users need to do that? CilckOnce supports automatic updates. Visiting url is certainly not needed for running the program.
what is the best way to store user passed credentials on their system
for a "remember me"?
Probably storing them as application settings. Haven't used visual studio 2012, but in visual studio 2010 you have to right-click on project in solutions explorer, go to project propeties and then create variables in Settings tab. Then you can access those variables in code using My.Settings.variableName. Not sure about security though, if you need any.
As for privileges, I think you just need a privilege to install a program. Maybe you should publish a primitive clickOnce application and experiment with it and that will answer all your other questions about clickOnce.
Forgive me if this is a stupid question, I'm fairly new to writing services. I've written a service that runs a timer and the timer code runs some checks to ensure our systems are up and running. It's written in VB.Net, framework 1.1. I then install the service using "sc create". The service works beautifully on the XP Pro machine that I'm developing on. However, when I install the service on a Windows 2003 server 64 bit, the service fails with error 1053 immediately. I put some debugging in to write to a text file as the first line of code in the OnStart function but even that doesn't run, so there must be a problem in the program starting up. Finally in desperation I created a brand new Windows Service in a new VB project in Visual Studio 2003 and compiled an empty service that merely declares and sets the value of a string variable in the OnStart function as follows:
Dim strTmp As String
strTmp = "hello"
Even that failed on the W2K3 server, but works fine on the XP dev machine.
The server has .Net Framework 1.1 installed and working, we use it in our CMS (written in ASP.Net 1.1).
The service runs as the local system account. I tried enabling interaction with the desktop but that didn't help. I ran Process Monitor and there are no access denied events. I emptied the Application Event Log, still doesn't work. No other events to help me out in the logs. Definitely using the Release build of the application. Permissions on the exe file are full control for System and for Admins.
Any ideas anyone? It must be something simple, but I'm damned if I can figure it out!
Thanks in advance.
#DavidHi, many thanks for the suggestions. I don´t think the first point is my problem, partly because the MS article is about stopping or pausing the service, mine fails on starting; but also because the service does not timeout, there is no 30 second wait, it fails immediately. Secondly, when you say add an exception handler to the service startup, do you mean the OnStart sub? I tried adding a debug file write in there, but I'll try adding an event log instead. Regarding the systems checks, it can't be that because the brand new empty test service I created shows the same behaviour and that does not do anything at all. You last point could be the key. My dev environment IS 32bit. I'll do some research on the corflags thing, or perhaps I can build a 64bit dev environment. Many thanks again, you've given me some new things to think about at least!
Ok, have found a workaround. I was putting my exe file in System32. When I put it in a different folder, created by myself, the service ran, albeit briefly. I then had to move the ini file and the log files that it reads/writes to that folder too, rather than System32, and all seems to work nicely. God knows why it doesn't like running from System32 but at least it works now! Thanks for the help guys.
This looks very similar to this question which might help you out:
Starting a windows service fails with error 1053
A couple of other things to look out for:
Make sure you don't have either of the following statements in your deployed service:
System.Diagnostics.Debugger.Launch
System.Diagnostics.Debugger.Break
You may need to run the service with an account other than Local System (depending upon the permissions required by your service).
The 1053 error is a timeout related to the service control manager waiting for the service to respond to your start request. There is a knowledgebase article that refers to managed service stop request issues specifically relating to Framework 1.1-based services, so it is not precisely describing your problem, but it may have relevance in your situation. The link is provided for your reference.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/839174
The other suggestion I would make to further diagnose the issue is to determine whether the Start is failing due to a "hidden" exception occurring in your service's startup code; the start call would not see the exception and could make you think it was merely timing out.
I would suggest you add an exception handler to your service startup that does nothing more than log a message to the event log with the particulars of the exception if one is caught. That would at least give you an idea that something is going wrong specifically within the service, and give you more information than you have right now.
One last thought: Does the service check the systems you describe over a network connection? If so, LocalSystem won't have sufficient privileges to perform network access.
Good luck!
EDIT One other possibility:
Is your development environment/execuable 32-bit? You mention your server is 64-bit, so you may need to use the "corflags" tool that forces 32bit operation on your executable
corflags /32bit+ YourServiceExectubable.exe
The source for this information was the following SO post:
32-bit Windows services in 64-bit environment
**Unfortunately, it appears corflags is applicable only for 2.0 assemblies, and was designed for specifically this type of problem. **
I want to keep a log with the attempted log-in to a machine. The OS is Windows Embbeded Standard. Is it possible to make Windows execute an application or a script after every login attempt to enable me to save that information in my database?
EDIT:
Extract from Superuser:
"Here, you can set auditing to all types of events. I believe the one you want is "Audit logon events", Set it to Failure (or Success as well if you want).
All events will now get sent to Event Viewer. ..."
Is it possible to access the Event Viewer info via WMI?
From a security viewpoint, I would assume this would not be possible. But it is possible to write your specialized GINA library which would replace the standard login system of Windows. This was done to support fingerprint readers and smart card readers, and many other alternative login methods.
But out of curiosity, what kind of problem are you trying to solve here? Windows already has plenty of build-in functionality which can be analysed by anyone who can log in.
Follow this link to see how it's done in Windows 2003. I've checked with Windows XP on a virtual machine and it works exactly the same there. So I assume it also works in embedded XP versions.For reading the event log, this link from MSDN will be practical too. This will require .NET though, which is optional on Windows XP.
WMI might be a good place to start. You could use WMI (or another method) to query the security event log for sucessful/failed logon events, too.
http://www.computerperformance.co.uk/vbscript/wmi_event_log_administrator.htm