The Core Technologies Blog

Professional Software for Windows Services / 24×7 Operation

Q & A: Will Service Protector Start Automatically When My Server Reboots?

Posted on January 6, 2018 (Revised September 28, 2020)

Hello, I’m testing your Service Protector program and I was wondering if it starts automatically when my server reboots? I didn’t notice an option for that. I have my server restart every night, will this be an issue with the trial version?

— James

Hi James. Yes, Service Protector will automatically start to protect your service whenever your server reboots. Restarting your server every night will not pose a problem.

You can’t find an option to automatically restart because there isn’t one! That functionality is built in. And the desktop application you run to setup your windows service will not start because it doesn’t need to. Confused? Let me explain…

You see, Service Protector has a couple of parts:

The desktop application you run to configure your windows services
When you install Service Protector, a convenient shortcut will be created on your desktop:
Double-clicking that shortcut will launch Service Protector:
But this application is merely a management utility, a “waiter/waitress” in the restaurant.
You use this management utility to:
- choose the windows service you wish to keep running 24/7
- specify the options for monitoring the service
- view daily and weekly performance reports, and more
This GUI utility does not monitor your services (or do any cooking, if we keep the restaurant analogy going). Therefore it does not need to start when your computer boots. You run it on demand, whenever you need to interact with Service Protector.
An invisible/background component that babysits each of your windows services
Whenever you setup a service to be monitored (like the Print Spooler in the screenshot above), a background program is deployed to do the work. That program is completely invisible and the only way to see it is by using the Windows Task Manager (or a relative, like the excellent Process Explorer).
Look for ServiceProtectorAgent.exe. Here it is watching the Print Spooler on Windows Server 2016:
Note that this component is itself a windows service! If your service is named “Spooler”, you will find a new service called “ServiceProtector: Spooler” on your machine:
The service’s startup type will be “Automatic”, to ensure that the Agent starts as soon as your machine boots. You never have to start it yourself.
So to complete the analogy, this background component is the restaurant chef — busy in the kitchen cooking the meals submitted by the waiter/waitress.

Hopefully it makes sense now! Please let us know if not. But the bottom line is that we’ve got you covered. 🙂

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Posted in Service Protector | Tagged q&a, service-protector, support | Leave a comment

Q & A: How do I force my .NET console application to run 64-bit?

Posted on December 30, 2017 (Revised May 1, 2022)

We have installed AlwaysUp version 9.7.2.88 (Sep. 2 2016) on Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard. We have multiple jobs that run a 64-bit .NET Console Application as a windows service, but we keep getting a SystemOutMemoryException error. What we found watching the Task Manager is that the EXE always runs as 32-bit. How do we get AlwaysUp to run the console app as 64-bit?

— Clayton

Hi Clayton. There are a couple of ways to force your .NET application to run in 64-bit mode:

Build a 64-Bit .NET Version
If you use Microsoft’s Visual Studio, the build configuration is likely be set to Any CPU (the default):

This will produce an executable that will run in either 32-bit or 64-bit mode, depending on the version of .NET available.
To run your executable in 64-bit only, change the configuration to x64 and rebuild.
If your project doesn’t have a x64 configuration, create one like this:
1. Select Build > Configuration Manager…
2. In the Configuration Manager,
3. click the Active solution platform entry and select <New> from the menu that appears:
4. In the New Solution Platform window, choose x64 in the top box. We recommend copying settings from Any CPU and creating new project platforms (the default):
5. Click the OK button to record your changes. Close the Configuration Manager
6. You should now have x64 as a build option. Set it and recompile to produce a 64-bit only executable:
Use CorFlags to Force .NET 64-Bit
If your application is built with “Any CPU” but you can’t rebuild it in Visual Studio, Microsoft’s free CorFlags utility will come to the rescue.
Corflags.exe is distributed with the Windows 10 SDK. Be sure to select the “.NET Development Tools” component when installing.
We actually found the CorFlags exe file in a couple of places on our hard drive:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v10.0A\bin\NETFX 4.6.1 Tools\Corflags.exe
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0A\Bin\Corflags.exe
You may find CorFlags in older .NET SDK installations as well — it has been around since the release of .NET 2.0 (2005).
Once you have located CorFlags:
1. Make a copy of the executable you want to run in 64-bit. The application we used for testing is called SystemInfoDotNet.exe, so we copied it to SystemInfoDotNet64.exe.
2. Open a command prompt with admin rights.
3. CD to the folder containing the copied application.
4. Run CorFlags on the copied application file. Specify the /32BIT- option to strip away the ability to run in 32-bit mode:
The copied executable will always run in 64-bit mode.
For example, our SystemInfoDotNet utility — which displays basic process and system information — normally runs in 32-bit mode:

But after running CorFlags on SystemInfoDotNet64, it magically runs in 64-bit mode:

Best of luck with your .NET application Clayton!

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Posted in AlwaysUp | Tagged 64-bit, alwaysup, console-application, corflags, dot-net, q&a, visual-studio | 2 Comments

Q & A: How Can I Generate a Crash Dump Before AlwaysUp Restarts my Application?

Posted on December 11, 2017 (Revised May 1, 2022)

Occasionally the application we’re running as a service stops responding, resulting in AlwaysUp restarting it. We would like to run a script prior to the restart to try to generate a crash-dump file so we can find out where the problem is. Is that possible?

— Kelly @ Sabre

Hi Kelly. Sorry to hear of the trouble! Please follow these steps to automatically generate a crash dump whenever your application terminates:

Download & install Microsoft’s free ProcDump utility
ProcDump — yet another excellent utility from the Sysinternals team — easily creates a dump file from any running process. It is our tool of choice when exploring application crashes.
Download the ProcDump .Zip package and extract all files to a convenient location. We have placed the files in “C:\Apps\ProcDump” for this article.
Be sure to run ProcDump at least once and accept the Sysinternals EULA. We don’t want the utility to hang when we run it unattended as a background service!
Compose the command line to capture a crash dump when your application stops
ProcDump features an impressive set of command line options. Please review and identify the flags that work best for your situation.
For example, we use this command to dump the notepad.exe application whenever it stops running:
c:\Apps\ProcDump\procdump.exe -t notepad
Please ensure that this command works as expected. Start your application, run the command and then terminate your application. Is a dump file created? Troubleshot and fix if not.
Setup your ProcDump command as a Windows Service in AlwaysUp
Your application is running 24×7. To configure ProcDump to operate on the same schedule and capture the dump file at any time:
1. Start AlwaysUp and select Application > Add… to bring up the Add Application window.
2. On the General tab:
  In the Name field, enter a suitable name for this new service. We have used “ProcDump Notepad”.
  In the Application field, enter the full path to ProcDump.exe.
  In the Arguments field, provide the command line options you developed in step 2. Be sure to add the -w flag, which will cause ProcDump to wait for your app to launch if necessary.
  And in the Start in directory field, enter the folder where you want the dump files to be written. (Leaving this blank will cause dump files to be created in the ProcDump folder.)
3. On the Logon tab, specify your windows account. ProcDump should run in this account since you know it works there (and that the EULA has been accepted).
4. Click the Save >> button to record the ProcDump service.
5. And finally, start your new service (from the Application menu).
  Here is what the finished setup looks like for us, with Notepad running as a service and ProcDump monitoring it (also as a service):
Test
Now that everything is in place, you should confirm that a crash dump will be created whenever your application stops.
Open the Task Manager and kill your application. Does a new dump file appear in the expected location? If not, please review all the steps and ensure that nothing was missed.

Best of luck debugging your program!

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Posted in AlwaysUp | Tagged alwaysup, crash-dump, debugging, procdump, q&a | Leave a comment

Q & A: How Do I Turn Off Service Protector During Scheduled Maintenance?

Posted on December 4, 2017

Wanted to know if there’s a way for Service Protector to not monitor a service during a patching period of time? Or any scheduled period of time without sending a million alerts?

— Mark @ Red Roof Inns

Hi Mark. Apologies for the barrage of unnecessary emails! Unfortunately Service Protector doesn’t know that it is OK for your service to be down while you are patching. It is diligently doing its job.

To avoid the false alarms, we recommend shutting down Service Protector at the start of your maintenance window and reactivating it once patching has concluded. These operations can be performed from the Service Protector GUI or with the standard Windows NET command.

You see, Service Protector creates a Windows Service for each service it monitors. If your service is named “MyService”, then Service Protector creates a service called “ServiceProtector: MyService” to watch your target service. Here is what it looks like for the “Print Spooler” service on our Windows Server 2016 machine:

Note that the service name may not be the same as the friendly “display name” you see in Service Protector (and Services.msc). For example, the service name of the “Print Spooler” service is actually “Spooler”:

This post shows how to find the service name.

How to Stop Protection at the Start of Maintenance

Stopping From the GUI
Select Stop <ServiceName> from the Protector menu. This will shut down Service Protector but will leave your target service running:
Stopping From the Command Line
This command will stop the instance of Service Protector monitoring a service named “MyService”:
NET STOP “ServiceProtector: MyService”
Here is what the process looks like for the Spooler service:

Simply run the NET STOP command before patching starts.

How to Restart Protection at the End of Maintenance

Starting From the GUI
Select Start <ServiceName> from the Protector menu. This will fire up Service Protector — and your target service if it’s idle:
Starting From the Command Line
A slightly different version of the NET command will restart the instance of Service Protector monitoring a service named “MyService”:
NET START “ServiceProtector: MyService”
Restarting protection for the Spooler service looks like this:

Run the NET START command once your system is back to normal.

How to Stop and Restart Service Protection Automatically

For patching that occurs at a defined time, we recommend using the Windows Task Scheduler to automate the process. Create a pair of scheduled tasks — one to stop protection and the other to restart it.

For example, if maintenance occurs every Saturdays from 1 AM to 3 AM, your first scheduled task could run NET STOP at 12:59 AM. The second task could be configured to run NET START at 3:01 AM.

Q&A: Why does AlwaysUp Fail to Run my Program?

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Posted in Service Protector | Tagged maintenance, net.exe, q&a, service-protector, support, task-scheduler | Leave a comment

AlwaysUp 10.5: Restricted Rights, Smoother Shutdowns, and more

Posted on November 20, 2017

We’re happy to announce a new version of AlwaysUp — our popular application that runs any application 24×7 as a Windows Service. It has been more than 6 months since the last public release so here is what’s new:

Start your application without full admin rights

Windows services are trusted, advanced components. As such, they typically run with full rights. Security mechanisms that limit capabilities — like Microsoft’s User Account Control (UAC) — do not constrain services.

But there are legitimate cases for wanting to run an application in the context of a windows service but without full administrative rights. For example:

You don’t entirely trust the application. Even if it comes from a reputable source, are you 100% sure that it won’t modify private files or read sensitive data?
Your organization operates a “locked down” environment. Government agencies and large corporations often treat security as the number one priority.
Your application requires it. Such is the case with Microsoft’s popular cloud storage solution, OneDrive.

The typical approach for security-conscious folks is to create a new account with limited, non-admin rights and specify that account on the AlwaysUp Logon tab. But that often fails because the entire service is run without admin rights, limiting what AlwaysUp itself can do.

In AlwaysUp 10.5, you can specify an administrator on the Logon tab and check the new Launch the application without admin rights option to ensure that the application operates with limited privileges:

To explore the details behind this new capability, check out our free, standalone Run With Restricted Rights utility. It offers the same functionality, but for folks not using AlwaysUp.

Note: Not every program will function properly without admin rights. Be sure to test thoroughly to confirm that your application is compatible with this new setting.

Smoother shutdowns

Windows shutdown can be chaotic. The operating system must notify each application (and windows service) that it should close — while allowing a waffling operator to interrupt the process.

When AlwaysUp is running an application as a service, confusion can arise when the application receives the shutdown signal before AlwaysUp does. In that situation, AlwaysUp tries to restart the application, leading to unnecessary “thrashing” as the system closes.

AlwaysUp 10.5 does a better job of detecting that a shutdown is in progress — even before it is officially notified by Windows.

Improved support for Windows 10 SHB

The US Department of Defense (DoD) has mandated that “all physically domain-joined computers running a Microsoft Windows based operating system must transition to the Windows 10 SHB (Secure Host Baseline) operating system” — a pre-configured and security hardened version of Windows.

While AlwaysUp is fully compatible with all editions of Windows 10, the stringent security in SHB implementations exposed a couple of bugs in our code. In one situation, AlwaysUp’s main window would become unresponsive and in another, the licensing code would fail. Both of these deficiencies have been fixed and several customers are happily running services on Windows 10 SHB.

Other fixes & improvements

AlwaysUp routinely interacts with the Windows Event Logs. When these logs became unusually large (containing hundreds of thousands of entries), AlwaysUp would take a while to process the entries, causing the main window to occasionally hang. This is no longer an issue now that the underlying code has been streamlined and optimized.
Many customers rely on a sanity check plugin to detect when an application running as a service has failed. Output from those plugins are now captured and emailed, if so configured.
Customers looking to install AlwaysUp silently as a part of their own products had to tolerate an annoying prompt that interrupted the process. That prompt has been removed.

As usual, please review the version history for the full list of features, fixes and improvements included in this release.

Upgrading to AlwaysUp Version 10.5

As per our upgrade policy, customers who purchased AlwaysUp 9 (after September 2014) can upgrade to version 10.5 at no additional cost. Just download and install “over the top” to preserve your existing applications an all settings. Your registration code will continue to work.

If you bought AlwaysUp version 8 or earlier (before September 2014), you will need to upgrade to use version 10.5. Please purchase upgrades here — at a 50% discount.

Enjoy!

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Posted in AlwaysUp | Tagged alwaysup, new-release, run-with-restricted-rights, security | 2 Comments

The Core Technologies Blog

Professional Software for Windows Services / 24×7 Operation

Q & A: Will Service Protector Start Automatically When My Server Reboots?

The desktop application you run to configure your windows services

An invisible/background component that babysits each of your windows services

You may also like...

Q&A: Can my Legacy Application Read Network Drives when Run as a Service?

An Early Look at Windows Server 2019

Q&A: How do I Eliminate Errors from my C# Console App Windows Service?

Q & A: How do I force my .NET console application to run 64-bit?

Build a 64-Bit .NET Version

Use CorFlags to Force .NET 64-Bit

You may also like...

Is AlwaysUp safe?

AlwaysUp works with Windows 8 & Windows Server 2012

Q&A: Why Doesn't AlwaysUp Catch my Endless Loop?

Q & A: How Can I Generate a Crash Dump Before AlwaysUp Restarts my Application?

Download & install Microsoft’s free ProcDump utility

Compose the command line to capture a crash dump when your application stops

Setup your ProcDump command as a Windows Service in AlwaysUp

Test

You may also like...

Q&A: What changed with my Windows Services?

Windows Server 2012 Certified

How do I Prevent the Interactive Services Detection Window from Constantly Coming Up?

Q & A: How Do I Turn Off Service Protector During Scheduled Maintenance?

How to Stop Protection at the Start of Maintenance

Stopping From the GUI

Stopping From the Command Line

How to Restart Protection at the End of Maintenance

Starting From the GUI

Starting From the Command Line

How to Stop and Restart Service Protection Automatically

You may also like...

Q&A: Why does AlwaysUp Fail to Run my Program?

Q&A: Why does AlwaysUp Think my Application Stopped?

Q&A: How do I Restart my Windows Service at a Specific Time every Week?

AlwaysUp 10.5: Restricted Rights, Smoother Shutdowns, and more

Start your application without full admin rights

Smoother shutdowns

Improved support for Windows 10 SHB

Other fixes & improvements

Upgrading to AlwaysUp Version 10.5

You may also like...

How do I Move my AlwaysUp/Windows Services to a New Server?

AlwaysUp Version 13: Easily Install Dropbox, OneDrive, Java and more as Windows Services; Full Suppo...

How to Run your Application Every Minute with AlwaysUp

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