Wait for network configuration to be complete in Windows Service startup

Question

Dear all,

current project of my team involves Windows Services communicating heavily among several machines via WCF. We occasionally run into problems upon startup, where we suspect that Services are initialized before the machine's IP connection is fully configured.

Anyone have an idea or suggestion how to verify this or how to generally assure that the network connection is fully configured on a Windows box? Solution needs to work on various Windows flavours (XP/Vista/Win7 and Server 2003/2008/2010, 32 bit as well as 64). Presence of .Net 3.5 can be assumed.

Many thanks! Armin

Answer 1

You could try making your service(s) dependent upon the Server service. That's helped me with this kind of problem in the past.

Answer 2

There is a Service in Windows XP and Windows 7, called "Network Connections". http://wiki.blackviper.com/wiki/Network_Connections

My guess is that after this service starts, the network connections are fully configured. It is worth a try.