Webrequest not working in a Windows Service

Question

I am not able to use Webrequest in a windows service. It fails with error ""Unable to connect to the remote server".

  WebRequest request = WebRequest.Create(url);
  NetworkCredential nc = new NetworkCredential("myuname","mypassword","mydomain");
  request.Proxy.Credentials = nc;

  try
  {

    HttpWebResponse response = (HttpWebResponse)request.GetResponse();
    Stream dataStream = response.GetResponseStream();
    StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(dataStream);
    string responseFromServer = reader.ReadToEnd();
  }
  catch (WebException ex)
  {
    //ex.Message is "Unable to connect to the remote server"
  }

The code works perfectly fine if it is a console application.

Could someone please tell if there is a fix?

Answer 1

You might want to try specifying the proxy server on the request object you've created. When you run the console application I believe that the system looks up your IE configuration for you and the proxy may be set. If the service is running under an account other than yours it might not have the proxy set.