HTTP Request problem in Windows Service

Question

Hi guys

We've written a Windows Service that needs to send an HTTP request in order to post some xml data to another server. When we test the code via a console application, it works fine, but when we test it by running it as a service, it errors on this line of code:

var httpWebRequest = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(Uri);

The error message is:

"Configuration system failed to initialize"

We're thinking the error is due to the User Account under which the Windows Service is running not having the permissions to make HTTP requests, we've tried running it under the local administrator account, but to no avail. It's not a question of supplying a username and password because when we run the code as a Console Application, the above line of code executes fine.

Any suggestions greatly appreciated! Many thanks.

Answer 1

It's unlikely to be a security problem.

Judging by posts like this one:

http://blogs.msdn.com/jongallant/archive/2008/03/02/configuration-system-failed-to-initialize-one-possible-solution.aspx it seems to come from a configuration file problem. I guess "Uri" is some property that gets initialized by looking at a config file.

The problem here may come from either a non conformant config file, or from the service loading a config file from some strange place (since it's running as a service). You may want to look at procmon from sysinternals to see what your service is loading when starting up.

Answer 2

Do you have user-scoped settings? There isn't any user profile loaded for windows service (that is, until you load one by yourself) so user-scoped setting would be missing.