C# get date/time a windows service started

Question

Is there a way to get the date/time that a service last started in C#. I'm using this code now to check the status of services:

ServiceController sc = new ServiceController(serviceName);
// check sc.status for "Running" etc... with a Switch statement...

Can I do it with this object? Or need WMI?

(Reason: I'm writing a little BizTalk Monitor, and a common problem is that people often forget to restart the BizTalk Service (host instances) after doing a deploy. I want to show the time it last was started.)

Thanks,

Neal Walters

Answer 1

Considering this information isn't visible in the Services Manager, it probably can't be found through the ServiceController class (and I didn't see anything in there either).

That being said, try looking at the Event Log. An event is generated automatically when a service is started and stopped.

Answer 2

In a C# app, write

 using System.Diagnostics;
 private static DateTime GetStartTime(string processName)
 {
    Process[] processes = 
        Process.GetProcessesByName(processName);
    if (processes.Length == 0) 
       throw new ApplicationException(string.Format(
          "Process {0} is not running.", processName));
    // -----------------------------
    DateTime retVal = DateTime.Now;
    foreach(Process p in processes)
       if (p.StartTime < retVal) 
          retVal = p.StartTime;

    return retVal ;
 }

if processname is not running, this throws an exception, modify to implement whatever alternative behavior you want. Also, if multiple instances of this process are running, this returns when the earliest was started...

Answer 3

This should do the proper lookup for you. Modify as necessary!

public List<Hashtable> GetEventEntryByEvent(
            ref string logName, ref string machineName, 
            ref string source)
        {
            try
            {
                //Create our list
                List<Hashtable> events = new List<Hashtable>();

                //Connect to the EventLog of the specified machine
                EventLog log = new EventLog(logName, machineName);

                //Now we want to loop through each entry
                foreach (EventLogEntry entry in log.Entries)
                {
                    //If we run across one with the right entry source
                    //  we create a new Hashtable
                    //  then we add the Message,Source, and TimeWritten values
                    //  from that entry
                    if (entry.Source == source)
                    {
                        Hashtable entryInfo = new Hashtable();

                        entryInfo.Add("Message", entry.Message);
                        entryInfo.Add("InstanceId", entry.InstanceId);
                        entryInfo.Add("Source", entry.Source);
                        entryInfo.Add("TimeWritten", entry.TimeWritten);
                        // You can also replace TimeWritten with TimeGenerated
                        //Add this new Hashtable to our list
                        events.Add(entryInfo);

                        entryInfo = null;
                    }
                }
                //Return the results
                return events;
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                MessageBox.Show(ex.ToString());
                return null;
            }
        }