Windows Service not able to run external application

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Simon Knox - 02 Feb 2004 00:15 GMT

Hi

I have a windows service that periodicly checks for orders. The orders are
converted to pdf files and then the pdf files are placed into a zip file and
emailed.

The problem I have is that to create the zip file I use Process.Start and
pass it a string containing the path to winzip and the files to zip as
arguments. This works fine when I do it from a Windows Forms application but
when I do it from the Windows Service it doesn't work. I don't get any
errors just no zip file.

I thought that it maybe a permissions error but the Windows Service is
running as the Local Service account so I would have thought that would be
sufficent permissions.

Any help or ideas with this would be greatly appriciated.

Thanks

Simon

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MSFT - 02 Feb 2004 08:44 GMT

Hi Simon,

Thank you for using the community.

Regarding the problem, I also suspect it is a permission related problem.
When WinZIP is executed, it may need read permission on its own folder and
Read/Write permission on the target folder and system temp folder. And, it
may also access some registry entries during the executing.

You may try two work around for the problem:

1. impersonate the web service with an account in local Administrators
group:

INFO: Implementing Impersonation in an ASP.NET Application
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;Q306158

2. Running the web serivce still with Local Service account and trace the
FileAccess and registry Access with some utilities to see if there is any
access denied error. These utilites called "Filemon" and "Regmon". You can
download them from:

http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/utilities.shtml

Once you found any Access denied in the log, you can grant proper
permission to the Local Service account according to the information and
try the web service again.

Hope this help

Luke
Microsoft Online Support

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Don McNamara - 02 Feb 2004 19:23 GMT

Simon,

That is odd - it does sound like a permission problem. I would try running
the service as a local admin just too see if greater permission would fix
the problem.

Also, you might want to look at
http://www.icsharpcode.net/OpenSource/SharpZipLib/ It's an open source
library for compressing and decompressing data (zip included) ported from
Java. It would probably give you a more robust error handling solution.

Good luck,
Don

don.mcnamara@REMOVE.dovestar.com

> Hi
>
[quoted text clipped - 17 lines]
>
> Simon

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Elp - 04 Feb 2004 15:37 GMT

Hi,

> The problem I have is that to create the zip file I use Process.Start and
> pass it a string containing the path to winzip and the files to zip as
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
> running as the Local Service account so I would have thought that would be
> sufficent permissions.

If your service is running under the local system account (there is no local
service account as far as i know), i doubt that your problem is a permission
problem as this account is a higly privileged account (maybe even more than
the administrator account).

It seems to me that it is a "allow service to interact with desktop"
problem. By default, Windows services are not allowed to have any user
interface or to interact with the current user's desktop. WinZip being a
normal Windows application with a UI, i guess that your service is simply
not allowed to start it unless you check the appropriate check box in your
service's properties. The solution to your problem is maybe as simple as
that.

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Pradeep M - 26 Feb 2004 07:03 GMT

HI folks,
I am facing the same kind of issue. Since, the Service runs in the
context of a non interactive desktop. I have tried setting the service
to interact with the desktop.

But still I dont get the process popping up my desktop.

Below is the source code:

ProcessStartInfo startInfo = new ProcessStartInfo("IExplore.exe");

startInfo.WindowStyle = ProcessWindowStyle.Minimized;

startInfo.Arguments = "www.google.com";

Process.Start(startInfo);

I tried running this piece of code under Administrative Rights. But
still i have the same issue..

Prad

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Elp - 26 Feb 2004 15:10 GMT

> HI folks,
> I am facing the same kind of issue. Since, the Service runs in the
> context of a non interactive desktop. I have tried setting the service
> to interact with the desktop.
>
> But still I dont get the process popping up my desktop.

What do you mean by "he Service runs in the context of a non interactive
desktop" ?

If your you try to display something (such as a IE window) from your service
when nobody is logged in Windows, i don't think that you'll see anything
even if the "allow service to interact with desktop" property is set. Unless
maybe if you start messing up with windows stations and all these lovely
things...

If you try to display a IE window while somebody is actually logged in, then
it should work. Are you sure that you restarted your service after setting
the allow interaction with desktop?

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Windows Service not able to run external application

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