CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#windows
Link
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Reputation: 551

Run windows service on a specific time

Can a windows service be set to run at a specific time..?

Example 

From 8:00 am to 5:00pm run process 
From 5:00 pm to 8:00am run process

This process can run daily, weekly or a single day..

Please let me know, your thoughts

Upvotes: 2

Views: 6763

Answers (4)

Mas
Mas

Reputation: 4606

What you can do is to use the Windows Task Scheduler and create a task to start the services, and another task to stop the services. All you need to do is create a batch file to start and stop the services.

Example Start Service:

net start MyService

Example Stop Service

net stop MyService

Upvotes: 0

Sajib Mahmood
Sajib Mahmood

Reputation: 3420

I faced a similar situation where I had to develop a service which would do something only during trading time which is from 11:00 am to 3:00 pm everyday in that specific case. It would remain idle the rest of the day. I am sharing what I did in my case. I am not sure whether it would be helpful for you but I hope that it will be.

Two variables maintaining the starting time and ending time

TimeSpan StartingTime = new TimeSpan(
                             Int32.Parse(
                               ConfigurationManager
                                  .AppSettings["StartingTimeHour"]), 
                             Int32.Parse(
                               ConfigurationManager
                                   .AppSettings["StartingTimeMinute"]), 0);
TimeSpan EndingTime = new TimeSpan(
                             Int32.Parse(
                               ConfigurationManager
                                   .AppSettings["EndingTimeHour"]), 
                             Int32.Parse(
                               ConfigurationManager
                                   .AppSettings["EndingTimeMinute"]), 0);
//Starting time and Ending time may change in future. So I used app.config 
//instead of fixing them to (11,0,0) and (15,0,0) respectively

A method to check whether it is trading time

public bool TradingTime()
{                        
    TimeSpan CurrentTime = DateTime.Now.TimeOfDay;
    return ((CurrentTime > StartingTime) && (CurrentTime < EndingTime));            
}

Then where it is necessary to check the time and execute something depending on that:

while (TradingTime())
{
    //do whatever required
}

Upvotes: 2

Jason
Jason

Reputation: 15931

There are a couple of ways to go about this. The easiest from a coding perspective is to write a console application and then run it using the task scheduler.

A windows service is always running, so you would want your service to sleep for some amount of time, wake up check if the current time is in the window, and if it is then execute.

Both approaches have their pros and cons, and it's really more about what the service does. One question I don't know the answer to is whether scheduled tasks run if the user that scheduled the task isn't logged in. This would be my biggest concern regarding the task scheduler approach.

Upvotes: 2

Reed Copsey
Reed Copsey

Reputation: 564323

Typically, if this is your requirement, you would be better served by writing a simple console application, and then using the Windows Task Scheduler to schedule it as needed.

This will provide the same benefits as a service, but allow you a lot more control over scheduling after deployment.

Upvotes: 6

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