Running app as Windows Service reports COM error 80040154

Question

Hi,

I'm trying to convert a normal application to a service. The application uses an installed COM component. When its run as a standalone application, this finds and connects to the COM component, however having converted the app to a service, I get the above error.

I understand that this could be related to the fact that in the "environment" of the Services Manager, it's failing to locate the appropriate dlls or registry entries - I'd appreciate any thoughts on how I can "fix" the "environment" of the Services Manager to pickup the appropriate registry entries/dlls (and I believe the box has been restarted after installing the COM component) - this could be also down to the fact that the PATH for the user contains the appropriate directories, and not sure what the PATH for the services manager could be or how to set it... (I'm a unix developer, all this fancy windows stuff is new to me... )

Thanks.

Answer 1

Clearly your COM server hasn't been properly registered. Once difference for a service is that it usually runs under a different account. Use Regedit.exe and make sure the registration is present in HKLM\Software\Classes\CLSID and not in HKCU. Reregister, this time make sure that you are running Regsvr32.exe in a administrator account with UAC turned off.

Answer 2

Did you ever find a solution for this problem? i am facing the same error now.