Here is a newer way of how to turn a Console Application to a Windows Service as a Worker Service based on the latest .NET 6.
In Visual Studio 2022 you have out of the box Worker Service as a project template.
This gives you a main method and a Worker.cs on which you need a few more lines
Worker.cs on which I've added the StartAsync and StopAsync overrides to chose what my service does at start/stop.
namespace WorkerService
{
public class Worker : BackgroundService
{
private readonly ILogger<Worker> _logger;
public Worker(ILogger<Worker> logger)
{
_logger = logger;
}
protected override async Task ExecuteAsync(CancellationToken stoppingToken)
{
//do some operation
}
public override Task StartAsync(CancellationToken cancellationToken)
{
return base.StartAsync(cancellationToken);
}
public override Task StopAsync(CancellationToken cancellationToken)
{
return base.StopAsync(cancellationToken);
}
}
}
and Program.cs on which you will need to add .UseWindowsService()
using WorkerService;
IHost host = Host.CreateDefaultBuilder(args)
.ConfigureServices(services =>
{
services.AddHostedService<Worker>();
})
.UseWindowsService()
.Build();
await host.RunAsync();
And you will need to install the following NuGet for this method
Install-Package Microsoft.Extensions.Hosting.WindowsServices
Old answer -> .NET Core 3.1
If you create a Worker Service from Visual Studio 2019 it will give you almost everything you need for creating a Windows Service out of the box, which is also what you need to change to the console application in order to convert it to a Windows Service.
Here are the changes you need to do:
Install the following NuGet packages
Install-Package Microsoft.Extensions.Hosting.WindowsServices -Version 3.1.0
Install-Package Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration.Abstractions -Version 3.1.0
Change Program.cs to have an implementation like below:
using Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection;
using Microsoft.Extensions.Hosting;
namespace ConsoleApp
{
class Program
{
public static void Main(string[] args)
{
CreateHostBuilder(args).UseWindowsService().Build().Run();
}
private static IHostBuilder CreateHostBuilder(string[] args) =>
Host.CreateDefaultBuilder(args)
.ConfigureServices((hostContext, services) =>
{
services.AddHostedService<Worker>();
});
}
}
and add Worker.cs where you will put the code which will be run by the service operations:
using Microsoft.Extensions.Hosting;
using System.Threading;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
namespace ConsoleApp
{
public class Worker : BackgroundService
{
protected override async Task ExecuteAsync(CancellationToken stoppingToken)
{
//do some operation
}
public override Task StartAsync(CancellationToken cancellationToken)
{
return base.StartAsync(cancellationToken);
}
public override Task StopAsync(CancellationToken cancellationToken)
{
return base.StopAsync(cancellationToken);
}
}
}
Installing the app as a Windows Service
When everything is ready, and the application has built successfully, you can use sc.exe to install your console application exe as a Windows Service with the following command:
sc.exe create DemoService binpath= "path/to/your/file.exe"
