How to Deploy a Windows Service using Visual Studio 2017 Community

Question

Working with VS2017 Community I have written a service that works on my local machine. I followed the instruction here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/framework/windows-services/walkthrough-creating-a-windows-service-application-in-the-component-designer

and installed it successfully using Installutil.exe (as per instructions in above link). All good.

I now want to deploy that across six servers in our organisation. In Microsoft's documentation about installing services (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/framework/windows-services/how-to-install-and-uninstall-services) it says:

If you’re a developer who wants to release a Windows Service that users can install and uninstall you should use InstallShield

and links to a page that applies to VS2012 (can't post any more links as my reputation<10)

I have downloaded and installed the "Microsoft Visual Studio 2017 Installer Projects" package, which allows me to create a Setup Project. When I run it, it installs the project output correctly (i.e. copies the exe & dll files to the correct folder in Program Files) but does not create the service.

There's a detailed post about deploying services on this site (question 9021075) but when I follow those instructions I get a 1001 error on Install.

All the documentation I can find refers to earlier versions of VS or the previous Installer package, so I'm not even certain if I can do it with the software I am using.

So, with VS2017 Community using Microsoft Visual Studio 2017 Installer Projects, how to I create a stand-alone Installer to deploy a service that works correctly when installed locally using InstallUtil?

Or can I use InstallUtil on the target machines? I think I'd need to install Visual Studio on them for that, which I'd prefer not to. Is there a quicker way?

I only have 6 servers to install this on, so even some manual work-around might do.

Answer 1

Thank you for the responses. I now have a solution. I found InstallUtil on the Target Server (in my case it was in C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319 but search will find it). I copied and added that to my project as content so when I now deploy it, I have InstallUtil in the same folder as my EXE.

To install, I run CMD as admin, cd to project folder and issue command:

installutil.exe myService.exe

This is a one-off task. Once the service is working, to update it I just need to stop it, upload the new myService.exe (& any DLLs) to overwrite the old ones and restart it again.

Answer 2

Further information about settings you're using for the serviceProcessInstaller1 and serviceInstaller1 files will be needed to debug this issue, as the 1001 error raised by the installer is a generic error.

An alternative way of doing this is to use Topshelf, which is a framework for hosting services written using the .NET framework. It simplifies the creation of services, allowing developers to create a simple console application that can be installed as a service using Topshelf. The reason for this is simple: It is far easier to debug a console application than a service. And once the application is tested and ready for production, Topshelf makes it easy to install the application as a service.

Alternatively, you could use InstallUtil.exe. It is part of the .NET Framework, so no need to install Visual Studio.