C# Waiting for other services to start

Question

I'm writing a Windows service that relies on other services, how should I wait for the other services to start?

Thanks

Answer 1

I think you shoud this line

installer.ServicesDependedOn = new string [] { "DependenceService" };

like this:

using (ServiceProcessInstaller processInstaller = new ServiceProcessInstaller())
{
    processInstaller.Account = ServiceAccount.LocalSystem;
    processInstaller.Username = null;
    processInstaller.Password = null; 

    using (ServiceInstaller installer = new ServiceInstaller())
    {
        installer.DisplayName = "yourservice.";
        installer.StartType = ServiceStartMode.Automatic;
        installer.ServiceName = "YourService";

        installer.ServicesDependedOn = new string [] { "DependenceService" };
        this.Installers.Add(processInstaller);
        this.Installers.Add(installer);
    }
}

good luck

Answer 2

In addition to what other answers have alredy pointed out, if one of those services is SQL Server you will need to ensure that the specific database is available as well as the SQL Server service itself. I use a function similar to the following:

public class DbStatus
{
    public static bool DbOnline()
    {
        const int MaxRetries = 10;
        int count = 0;

        while (count < MaxRetries)
        {
            try
            {
                // Just access the database. any cheap query is ok since we don't care about the result.
                return true;
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                Thread.Sleep(30000);
                count++;
            }
        }
        return false;
    }
}