I am reading about how you can create an .exe that will install a windows service to the server.
Say I already have the windows service installed and I want to perform an update. Is there a way for the installer to uninstall (stop the service, delete it, uninstall it) the currently running service and then install the updated version?
Don't be that drastic -- if possible, just stop the service, replace the files you need to, and then (optionally) restart the service.
If you delete the service from the SCM, you lose any post-install configuration done by the user -- custom logon credentials, the settings that dictate what to do when the service crashes, etc.
You shouldn't need to create an exe to do this, the "sc" command can uninstall, update, and install services on Windows for you. See:
Using SC.EXE to Develop Windows NT Services
How to create a Windows service by using Sc.exe
If you still really want to do this by creating your own executable you certainly can, if you can let us know what language you're working in code samples can be provided.
Related
My question, is there a way to configure the InstallShield setup and deployment project so that when I attempt to install the service it will uninstall the previously installed version of the service.
I've created a Windows Service and an InstallShield setup and deployment project to be able to install it onto my machine. The process of installing and uninstalling the service all works fine. When I go to update the service, at the moment, I need to stop the service, uninstall the service manually, and then run the installer. What I am trying to get to is a point where I can run the installer and it will uninstall the previous version of the service before installing the current version.
I have seen this process of running the install and having the previous versions uninstalled work. Through creating a test project using a windows form application. I was able to install the application. Then I: incremented the product version, created a new product code, added a new upgrade entry in the upgrade path area, and configured that upgrade entry setting the min and max version. After doing this, I rebuilt the setup project and ran the installer and the upgrade from version A to version B was complete.
The only difference I believe from the original test project (where I saw the process work) and my Windows Service project is that my test project was a Windows Forms application versus a Windows Service. In all the research I have been doing I have seen people ask similar questions, but I have not seen any real suggestions on what actions to take. So if anyone knows if this is possible or has any suggestions that I could try to accomplish this task they would be greatly appreciated.
I was able to resolve this issue, so it is possible. The setting I mentioned above are the correct settings needed to allow the service to update. This was just a case of human error that was causing my problems.
I have a windows service that installs itself by executing it in a cmd with the command line --install. This service also knows how uninstall itself by passing the --uninstall param in a cmd.
I need to create a MSI installer that installs this service and start it. I have tried by using Components in Installshield and using Custom Actions but not getting the rights results either way.
I need some help here. Thanks
Please see my answer under Wix installer to replace INSTSRV and SRVANY for user defined service installation
The WiX ServiceInstall and ServiceControl elements are abstractions for the underlying Windows Installer ServiceInstall and ServiceControl tables. InstallShield uses this same feature but instead of authored as XML it's authored in the components view under the advanced settings | services area of the component.
In general it's not a windows installer best practice to call a custom action to register the service. Instead figure out the details being done by the --install command and author them natively into these tables using InstallShield.
Installing, Controlling, and Configuring Windows Services
I have created a Windows service to do some batch processing. The service has been running well till last week. Last week i have re installed my OS. and installed the windows service again using the MSI package. But after installation the Service is not getting Displayed in the Service.msc however the Control panel shows the entry for the service. Now the problem is im not able to uninstall the service from control panel. When i tried to uninstall it is throwing Error1: The specified service does not exists as an installed service. Sc delete option also not able to delete the service from control panel.
Thanks in advance!!
To paraphrase:
As I understand it you're wanting to delete a service which hasn't installed cleanly?
You can either:
Use sc delete <myservice> (which I'm presuming from your question is unavailable?)
Delete the associated windows registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services (search for your subkey)
Hope that helps!
I've an Installer with some custom actions & the designer fancy to install a windows service.
From times to times, when I made a mistake in my custom actions (or in the MSI configuration) the upgrade process may fail. Solution is to uninstall the Application and do a fresh installation.
But sometimes I'm ending in the situation, where I can't uninstall the Application because the "custom actions" for the service claims, that the service is not registered in the system. OK, maybe, no problem. I'm uninstalling the App. The problem: my app don't get uninstalled. It remains. I have to manually add the service to the registry again and restart the uninstall process.
Question: What do I have to configure/develop/program/etc. to tell the service (un)installer not to fail during uninstall when the service is already removed.
BTW: My custom actions do NOTHING during uninstallation. Only during installation/upgrade, I'm asking the user for some configuration and do some custom config stuff - only related to my app. Not related to the service.
EDIT: forgot to mention: VS 2008, default installer project, no fancy stuff, target machine is Windows XP
Yeah, that's one of the many reasons I say not to use VDPROJ and InstallUtil custom actions. You need to put a try catch block in your uninstall custom action and handle that scenario.
Hopefully you are testing on a VM and can just revert but in case this is your dev box use the Windows SC command to recreate the service so you can get the uninstall to work for now.
If you really want to do this right, you want to do something like this:
Augmenting InstallShield using Windows Installer XML - Windows Services
The same concept applies you'll just be adding the WiX merge module to your VDPROJ installer.
I'm using WiX to write a MSI installer to start a service that depends on DLLs installed by the MSI. On Vista, the DLLs become added to the global assembly cache in the MSI's InstallFinalize phase, so I can't use the built-in service starting command in WiX. That one tries to start the service before the DLLs are in the GAC, and fails. The solution seems to be to use a custom action instead [1], and run that after InstallFinalize.
The custom action I used was starting the service with sc. Everything works fine when running the installer as an administrator, but running as a regular user doesn't work. The installer will elevate privileges for the actual install phase, but will drop them after finalizing the installation, and starting the service with sc as a non-privileged user will fail. Setting the custom action to be deferred and no-impersonate to get admin privileges won't work either after InstallFinalize [2].
As a final kludge, I tried to add <Condition>Privileged</Condition> to the WiX file to tell the user that the installer needs to be run as Administrator, but I couldn't get that to work either. The Privileged value gets set to 1 during the installation, maybe when the main install sequence is given higher privileges.
So has anyone else ran into the combination of Vista, non-Administrator user, installer needs to start a service and service needs stuff that goes into GAC during installation to run? Is there any kind of working general approach to this?
[1] http://www.mail-archive.com/wix-users#lists.sourceforge.net/msg09162.html
[2] http://www.mail-archive.com/wix-users#lists.sourceforge.net/msg15381.html
This is one of those times when the easiest solution is just to schedule a reboot.
Here are a few possibilities :
If possible, do not install prerequisite assemblies in the GAC. This will allow your service to be started normally (ie between InstallInitialize and InstallFinalize).
Create a bootstrapper (a small app that launches prerequisite MSIs in a certain order). Place the prerequisite assemblies (those that go in the GAC) into their own MSI, and get the bootstrapper to install them before it installs your service.
Create a launcher (an even smaller app that just launches your MSI). Give it a manifest that will make it run elevated. That way, the entire MSI is elevated, not just the part that's between InstallInitialize and InstallFinalize. You should be able to invoke sc succesfully.
I agree with #sascha. Rebooting is not just the easiest but cleanest in this case. All of the other proposed solutions are going to set you up for a much higher failure rate in the future. IMHO, the Windows Installer design w.r.t. the GAC is busted. The reboot is recognition of that.