Sunday, March 01, 2009

Provide credentials (username and password) while installing a service silently

by Christophe via Christophe on 3/1/2009 6:47:58 PM

I had to install a Windows service on several servers this week (about 30 servers …). I wanted to do it using a simple batch file, and installing the service silently.

Unfortunately, when using InstallUtil to install a Windows service, you can’t specify the credentials used by the service to logon. You can’t install your service with this kind of command line:

InstallUtil.exe MyService.exe /username=MyUserName /password=Password

[RunInstaller(true)]
public partial class ProjectInstaller : Installer
{
  public ProjectInstaller()
  {
    InitializeComponent();
  }

  public String GetContextParameter(String key)
  {
    if (this.Context == null
      || this.Context.Parameters == null
      || !this.Context.Parameters.ContainsKey(key))
      return null;

    return this.Context.Parameters[key].ToString();
  }

  protected override void OnBeforeInstall(IDictionary savedState)
  {
    base.OnBeforeInstall(savedState);

    String username = GetContextParameter("username");
    String password = GetContextParameter("password");

    if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(username))
      serviceProcessInstaller1.Username = username;
    if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(password))
      serviceProcessInstaller1.Password = password;
  }
}