Event Build pre & post to stop and restart Windows service

Question

I've been experimenting with using build events to start and stop Windows service that are being built in my project. However for the pre & post builds fail with an error level 255. I've tried catching this with the pre-build with no luck.

Pre-build

if "$(ConfigurationName)" == "Debug"
(
 net stop myService
 if errorlevel 2 
    if errorlevel 255 
        :exit

   :exit
)

Post-build

if "$(ConfigurationName)" == "Release"
(
   copy $(TargetDir) C:\Media\Bin\$(ProjectName)
   if errorlevel 1 BuildEventFailed

   :BuildEventFailed
   mkdir C:\Media\Bin\$(ProjectName)

   copy $(TargetDir) C:\Media\Bin\$(ProjectName)
)
else if "$(ConfigurationName)" == "Debug"
(
   net start myService
)

Wehrle

Answer 1

The following weblog by Joel Varty has a solution which I use: Use Build Events to rebuild a Windows Service without having to manually stop/start it

The only problem is when you do a rebuild. Visual Studio cleans up the files before the pre-build event fires. This then off course fails because the service is still running. But regular builds work great. Hope this helps.

Ethereal

I prefer to have stop, copy, start, exit all in post-build since the service path probably shouldn't point directly to a /bin/Release folder. This also prevents the service from being stopped but never restarted if the build fails for other reasons. – Harv

@Dan has the right answer. This also lets you easily switch to different build configs, branches, etc. without reinstalling/repointing the service. From a comment in SDM's link, you can also auto-install the service so that for new developers it just works. – Nativity

Answer 2

Try using the opening parenthese on the first line of your pre-build code

Arabeila

Answer 3

The conditional statement doesn't require double-qoute ("")

It should be like

if $(ConfigurationName) == Debug (
 net stop myService
 ...
)

Decompose

I believe it's common practice to always use quotes in case the variable is empty, otherwise you can end up with if == Debug instead of if "" == "Debug". However, in this case $(ConfigurationName) should always have a value. – Nativity

Not sure. When I added "", it didn't work for me on visual studio – Decompose

You might be right. I've seen the practice many times in batch files and assumed that was the case. With a quick search online I didn't really find anything definitive. – Nativity

Answer 4

This is how I got it to work:

(this solution was a part of an enterprise software where some dll files are reused by another app)

Model is a project which is referenced in Service project and it is built before Service. Which is why we write these codes in Model's Pre-Build Events:

---

Model Pre-Build Event:

if not exist "$(SolutionDir)UI\bin\Debug\ServiceFolder" mkdir "$(SolutionDir)UI\bin\Debug\ServiceFolder"

net start | find "[Service Name]"

if ERRORLEVEL 0 (
net stop "Service Name"
"C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\InstallUtil.exe" -u "$(SolutionDir)UI\bin\Debug\ServiceFolder\Service.exe"
)

exit 0

• creates a directory in output folder
• finds the service by name
• stops it
• uninstalls it
• exit 0 causes the build process to continue if error occurs here

---

Service Post-Build Event:

xcopy /E /Y "$(ProjectDir)bin\Debug\*" "$(SolutionDir)UI\bin\Debug\ServiceFolder"
"C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\InstallUtil.exe" "$(SolutionDir)UI\bin\Debug\ServiceFolder\Service.exe"
net start "Service Name"

• copy everything needed for the service to a different folder
• installs service
• starts service

About permissions?

• visual studio will ask for elevated permission automatically

Roa

Answer 5

Prebuild:

net stop "Capstone Service"
Exit /b 0

Postbuild:

net start "Capstone Service"
Exit /b 0

• Exit: This command is used to terminate the currently running batch script or subroutine.
• /b: Specifies that the exit is from within a batch file or subroutine.
• 0: Specifies the exit code. In this case, 0 indicates successful completion or no error.

Specifically for the prebuild, this ignores the error in visual studio of trying to stop the service if it's not started.

Gangrene