The following information was contributed by one of our customers who was able to run the Wedge as a service under Windows NT or 2000. To date, we have not tested the following approach therefore we are not be able to provide any support for the following technique.

A utility called srvany.exe that comes along with the Windows NT Resource Kit is used to install Winwedge as a NT Service with the following benefits.

• When applications run as a service, they are not closed during logoff. So users do not need to start them each time they log on, nor can they kill them if the services control has been restricted to the users.
• Server applications can service requests even when no user is logged on.
• Applications can run and perform tasks specific to a logon account that is different from the user who is currently logged on.

Create a directory c:\service and copy the following files in it.

Instsrv.exe
Srvany.exe
Wedge.bat

Note: The file Wedge.bat is a batch file that contains the command line used to launch and activate the Software Wedge with a specific WinWedge configuration file. This file will need to be created or modified to contain the correct path to the Winwedge.exe file installed on your system and also correct name of the WinWedge configuration file that you want to use. For example, if the Software Wedge is installed in the path:
"c:\program files\winwedge\winwedge.exe"
and the Software Wedge configuration file that you want to use is named:
MyConfig.SW3
then the batch file Wedge.Bat should contain the line:

"c:\program files\winwedge\winwedge.exe" MyConfig.sw3

If you do not have the Instsrv.exe and Srvany.exe files, click here to download them in a self extracting ZIP file along with a sample Wedge.Bat batch file.

At the Command Prompt, type:

1. Instsrv Wedge c:\service\srvany.exe ….. Where Wedge is the name of the Service.

2. In Services in Control Panel, click the services Wedge and then click Startup to display the Startup dialog box. There click Automatic. In the Logon On as box, choose system Account.

3. Start Registry Editor using Regedit.

• Add a new Parameters subkey in the following registry location:

HKEY_Local_Machine\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Wedge called Parameters

• In the new Parameters subkey create an Application Value Entry with a data type of REG_SZ, and specify the full path of the executable of the application ( Application: REG_SZ:C:\Winnt\system32\cmd.exe /k

• In the Parameters subkey create an AppParameters Value Entry with a data type of REG_SZ and specify c:\service\wedge.bat

• In the Parameters subkey create an AppDirectory Value Entry with a data type of REG_SZ and specify the location of winwedge directory. For example (c:\program files\winwedge)

Related Links

More information on running Visual Basic Applications as a Service