Wix Read and Write Network Service - windows-services

Question

I've been trying to get my .msi to install a service on my machine. I used exe4j to make my Java code, archived in .jar file, for it to be held in a .exe file. The service needs to have privileges to read and write across networks. I managed to get it all working except that the service hasn't got read and write privileges when account is set to 'NT AUTHORITY\NetworkService' in the ServiceInstall element.
public static void main(String[] args)
{
try
{
MainService instance = new MainService();
instance.processArgs(args);
watcher.run();
}
catch(Exception e)
{
error(e.getMessage());
e.printStackTrace();
}
System.exit(1); // only get here after an exception
}
This is some of my WiX code
<File Name="tService.exe" Source="tService.exe" KeyPath="yes" />
<ServiceInstall Id="ServiceID" Description="Copies assets" ErrorControl="normal" Name="tService" Start="demand" Interactive="no" Type="ownProcess" Account="NT AUTHORITY\NetworkService" />
<ServiceControl Id="StartService" Stop="both" Remove="uninstall" Name="InterConnectService" Wait="yes" />
What Account do I need or how could I get Read and Write privileges with my service? I want the .msi file to install the service with these read and write privileges. I don't want to start creating accounts manually.
Update:
'NetworkService' just fails at installation time with the msi "Service ... could not be installed. verify that you have sufficient privileges to install system services". When I use 'NT AUTHORITY\NetworkService' the installation process works fine. However with 'NT AUTHORITY\NetworkService' I cannot read or write across networks.
Any ideas how I could read and write across networks? Your responses are much appreciated.

Answer 1

As Rob asked, it will be helpful to know whether your installation fails or just doesn't set the permissions. However, you can anyway try this: in #Account attribute put just 'NetworkService', not the full 'domain\account' value. 'NetworkService' is one of the aliases provided by WiX toolset for well-known accounts - it will be mapped to the proper account correctly.

Answer 2

The name of the service account is wrong, it needs to be NT AUTHORITY\Network Service.