Running a background process on the Windows platform requires running a Windows Service. To run a Windows Service, you must have an application that is Windows Service aware. A Bash script is not Windows Service aware and neither are many console applications. XYNTService allows an administrator to define a console program and its options to execute. The XYNTService application is a Windows Service that reads a configuration file to know which applications to run. Read more…
Just wanted to point out there is a great equivalent to this called FireDaemon, which provides a nicely-designed GUI that allows you to run any Windows program as a service in the background.
http://www.firedaemon.com/
I consider this tool essential if you are running a Windows server. Most of the servers I maintain are, unfortunately, Windows ones (though my personal server is Linux, so that ain’t a problem), but on each of those I’ve installed FireDaemon. This allows me to use my custom-coded Python scripts and make sure they get run, and also to background very nice Windows programs like BulletProof FTP Server.
A nice additional feature of FireDaemon is that it can _still_ allow GUI access for a Windows service. (Dunno if XYNTService does this). Although it’s a bit insecure, it still allows you to run a single of a program like BPFTP while still getting access to GUI functions.
Glad to see a new player in this market. I can’t believe Microsoft hasn’t included functionality like this (perhaps speaks volumes about the average Windows “sysadmin”).
Agreed, FireDaemon is very handy. I’ve once used it for the Mercury mailserver. It’s free (as in beer) for up to two “services” / daemons.
That only speaks volumes about __YOUR__ windows sysadmin skills.
RE: FireDaemon – commercial product equivalent
By on 2005-07-21 22:32:53 UTC
That only speaks volumes about __YOUR__ windows sysadmin skills.
How so? Explain. What specifically are you referring to?
This is certainly a neat program and probably some nice coding on the service itself, but why do I want this? In Windows I can use cygwin/cron or even the windows “task scheduler” to get things done. Maybe the only advantage is the GUI?
Because cygwin/cron on windows is a crappy hacked solution.
Because running something as a Windows service and running something on a given interval are two completely different things? No?
and what about ServAny from Ms resouce kit?
“That only speaks volumes about __YOUR__ windows sysadmin skills.”
Now there’s an eloquent reply if I ever saw one!
Now, why don’t you take a couple of Midol and crawl back in your hole?
If you read the article the utilities from Microsoft are on the MS resource kit, and at the time of the writing of the book the MS resource kit was not for free. You had to pay money for it, and it was not Open Source. So essentially two strikes, whereas XYNTService is both Open Source, and Free as in Free Beer for whatever number of services.