Run Foldda Solution as Win-Service

You can run your Foldda solution as a Windows service, meaning your Foldda solution can be run as a "server app", not depend on an user's login session.

Note: This premium feature requires a license 

The Foldda Win-Service program (WinService.exe) and the associated scripts described below are not included with the free download. They are available separately and require a valid license to run. Free trial is available on-request.

Step 1: Install the service

In the Integrator folder, place the provided scripts into the “[win-service-setup-scripts]” sub-folder. Right-click to run the “reinstall-service.bat” script, like this – 

The script must be run under the Administrator privilege, and it should in the end show “Commit phase completed successfully ..” like the below –

Take a look at the Windows Services control panel of the installed service –  

Don’t start the service yet as we’ll need to specify a solution that you’d like it to run in the service. 

Step 2: Setting the solution path

To specify the solution that you’d like to run in the Integrator Win-Service, you will need to set the SOLUTION_HOME_PATH value in the WinService.exe.config file. For example –

Note in the above example, the path to the solution is a relative path – it is the solution home folder’s path relative to the location of the WinService.exe. It can also be set to an absolute path regardless of where the WinService.exe sits, something like “C:\My Solution”.

Step 3: Run the Win-service

Starting the Win-service automatically loads the configured solution, like the following –

Note although you control and operate a server solution from the Foldda Integrator desktop app, the solution is running inside the Windows service as a separate process. This means the status of the solution remains regardless of whether the desktop app is running or not. 

In the above example, the server solution has two nodes being shutdown through using the Integrator desktop app. Because the solution is running in the background within a Windows service, its running status is not affected when the Integrator desktop app is stopped and restarted.

Summary

Running a Foldda Integration solution as a Windows service allows your solution running in the background without a front-end Windows app and regardless of whether the computer has a user login session or not.

Also, when combined with the Foldda node’s auto-start/auto-resume feature, your solution can automatically enter into the desired status, in the event of the hosting computer restarts.