Getting started with Windows Service in Visual Studio 2013

Download the tutorial code here: helloworldservice.zip 

Lets start with building a simple windows service in Visual Studio which will write "Hello World" text with current Date and Time stamp into a text file.

1. Open Visual Studio
2. Navigate to "File -> New -> Project" menu option

1. Navigate to "Visual C# -> Windows Desktop" under installed templates options
2. Select "Windows Service"
3. Enter "Project Name" and "Location" as shown below

1. Rename the "Service.cs" file to "HelloWorldService.cs"

1. Go to code behind file of "HelloWorldService.cs" file and enter the following code:

/// <summary> /// Create instance of timer class and set the interval. /// define the timer elapsed event

/// call the start method of the timer object /// </summary>

public HelloWorldService()

{

    InitializeComponent();

     Timer oTimer = new Timer();

     oTimer.Elapsed += oTimer_Elapsed;

     oTimer.Interval = 6000;

     oTimer.Start(); }

/// <summary> /// define the logic to write the file with "HelloWorld" text with datetime stamp /// </summary> /// <param name="sender"></param> /// <param name="e"></param>

void oTimer_Elapsed(object sender, ElapsedEventArgs e)

{

 StreamWriter oStreamWriter =   new StreamWriter("G:\\SimplyDOTNET\\ServiceOutput\\HelloWorld.txt", true);

 oStreamWriter.WriteLine("Hello World" + DateTime.Now.ToString());

 oStreamWriter.Close();

 oStreamWriter = null;

}

• run the service
• donot close the alert window which is shown

1. navigate to the folder which is set as a destination to write the text file
2. you can find a file and if you open it, you will find the text is written to the file

   
Hope this helps.