windows service startup timeout

Question

Hi,

Is there a way to set a different value for service startup timeout per service? I can change it using the ServicesPipeTimeout registry key, but it's per machine (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/824344).

At the moment the only thing I thought about was to do all the time-consuming startup actions in a different thread.

Thanks.

Answer 1

It's good practice to finish starting your service as fast as possible. So, during the start state, do only what you absolutely need to acknowledge it started successfully; and do the rest later. If the start is still a lengthy process, use SetServiceStatus periodically to inform the Service Control Manager that you have not yet finished, so it does not time-out your service.

Answer 2

I agree with Romulo on finishing to start your service as soon as possible. However, if you need the time and you are using .NET Framework 2.0 or later, you might consider ServiceBase.RequestAdditionalTime() method.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.serviceprocess.servicebase.requestadditionaltime.aspx

protected override void OnStart()
{
    this.RequestAdditionalTime(10000);
    // do your stuff
}