unable to run postgres as windows service

Question

I had this in my windows services:

C:/Program Files/PostgreSQL/8.4/bin/pg_ctl.exe runservice -N "postgresql-8.4" -D "D:/PostgreSQL/8.4/data" -w

It never finishes executing. But if i did this on the dos shell:

C:/Program Files/PostgreSQL/8.4/bin/pg_ctl.exe start -N "postgresql-8.4" -D "D:/PostgreSQL/8.4/data" -w

notice that i only changed the "runservice" to "start" and it works just fine.

Any idea?

Appreciate anyone's response.

Answer 1

You need to check your logfiles and the windows eventlog for some hint of what the problem is. If there is nothing at all there, you need to break out something like Process Monitor and get a stacktrace of where it's hung.

Answer 2

I have had this issue in the past, and it was that the installer did not set up the permissions correctly for the user that the service was to run as.