Interactive Service on Windows

[jawnah]

I've been working on an AutoIT script that will allow me to run a GUI application (that provides a splash screen for a batch-loaded application) as a service in Windows. I'm experiencing an issue with the script where, once compiled as an EXE and installed as a service (using "sc"), the system doesn't recognize that the service is starting. It actually launches the application and I see my GUI screens (because the "Interact with Desktop" feature is turned on), but the system continues showing the "Starting" status for the service and eventually complains that the service has taken too long to respond. This obviously makes for an ugly start-up and is undesirable.

I was able to get the same process to work as a service using the _Service.au3 script that I found posted on this forum. However, once I did that, the GUI components no longer showed and every time I started the service, I got various system beeps (from what I think were invisible dialog boxes trying to show me errors).

Based on my testing and the results above, I assume that I'm missing some sort of command channel for communicating the status of the service to the Windows Services system. However, in my research, I can't seem to figure out how I'd go about establishing such a channel, if that's even my problem.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Also, I'm new to this scripting language, so if I've got something below that is bad form, please feel free to point it out (such as how I formed my array that I wish would start as 0!). I've posted my code below:

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#include <Constants.au3>
#include <GUIConstantsEx.au3>
#include <WindowsConstants.au3>
#include <StaticConstants.au3>
#include <EditConstants.au3>
#include <UpdownConstants.au3>
#include <Array.au3>
#NoTrayIcon

main()

; Function to start the app

Func main()
     Local $splashGui, $splashMsg, $splashText, $posProcess, $posOut, $startupString, $splashStatus, $splashProgress, $posOut2, $posOut3
     Local $pubDirectoryBound, $startupSize, $startupCount, $tempLine, $tempLine2, $startupSteps, $arrayStartupSteps, $startupIncrement
     Local $readBuffer, $bufferArray, $startupTotal, $arrayPos
     
     Dim $arrayStartupSteps[1]
     
     _ArrayAdd($arrayStartupSteps, "Dispatcher.configureDispatcher(): local tech LogTechnician started.")
     _ArrayAdd($arrayStartupSteps, "Dispatcher.configureDispatcher(): local tech LocalDT started.")
     _ArrayAdd($arrayStartupSteps, "Dispatcher.configureDispatcher(): local tech UITechnician started.")
     _ArrayAdd($arrayStartupSteps, "Dispatcher.configureDispatcher(): local tech DeviceTechnician started.")
     _ArrayAdd($arrayStartupSteps, "Dispatcher.configureDispatcher(): local tech ResourceTechnician started.")
     _ArrayAdd($arrayStartupSteps, "Dispatcher.configureDispatcher(): local tech JournalTechnician started.")
     _ArrayAdd($arrayStartupSteps, "Dispatcher.configureDispatcher(): local tech ParameterTechnician started.")
     _ArrayAdd($arrayStartupSteps, "Dispatcher.configureDispatcher(): manager UtilityManager started.")
     _ArrayAdd($arrayStartupSteps, "Dispatcher.configureDispatcher(): manager PrintableDocumentManager started.")
     _ArrayAdd($arrayStartupSteps, "Dispatcher.configureDispatcher(): manager JournalFormatterManager started.")
     _ArrayAdd($arrayStartupSteps, "Dispatcher.configureDispatcher(): manager ResourceManager started.")
     _ArrayAdd($arrayStartupSteps, "Dispatcher.configureDispatcher(): manager SecurityManager started.")
     _ArrayAdd($arrayStartupSteps, "Dispatcher.configureDispatcher(): manager JournalManager started.")
     _ArrayAdd($arrayStartupSteps, "Dispatcher.configureDispatcher(): manager TIERMANAGER started.")
     _ArrayAdd($arrayStartupSteps, "Dispatcher.configureDispatcher(): local app APPLICATION started.")
     
     _ArrayDelete($arrayStartupSteps, 0)
     
     $splashGui = GUICreate("Splash Screen", 500, 300)
     $splashStatus = GUICtrlCreateLabel("POS Application Status", -1, 5, 500, 25, $SS_CENTER)
     $splashProgress = GUICtrlCreateProgress(5, 30, 495, 20)
     $splashText = GUICtrlCreateEdit("", -1, 50, 475, 250, $ES_MULTILINE + $ES_AUTOVSCROLL,$UDS_WRAP)
     
     GUISetState()
     GUICtrlSetData($splashText, "Starting application..." & @CRLF, 1)
     GUICtrlSetData($splashText, "There are " & String(UBound($arrayStartupSteps)) & " items in the startup array." & @CRLF, 1)
     $startupIncrement = 100 / UBound($arrayStartupSteps)
     $startupIncrement = Round($startupIncrement)
     GUICtrlSetData($splashText, "-- We will be using increments of " & String($startupIncrement) & " for status" & @CRLF, 1)
     GUICtrlSetData($splashText, "The length of CRLF is " & StringLen(@CRLF) & @CRLF, 1)
     
     $posProcess = Run("C:\someapp\start.bat", "C:\someapp",@SW_MINIMIZE,$STDOUT_CHILD + $STDERR_CHILD)
     Do
          $splashMsg = GUIGetMsg()
          $posOut = StdoutRead($posProcess)
          $readBuffer = $readBuffer & $posOut
          If Not StringInStr($posOut, @CRLF) Then
               ContinueLoop
          Else
               $bufferArray = StringSplit($readBuffer, @CRLF, 2)
               If Not StringRight($readBuffer, 2) = @CRLF Then
                    $readBuffer = _ArrayPop($bufferArray)
               Else
                    $readBuffer = ""
               EndIf
          EndIf
          
          For $i In $bufferArray
               If $i = "" Then
                    ContinueLoop
               EndIf
               GUICtrlSetData($splashText, "-- Received: " & $i & @CRLF, 1)
               $arrayPos = _ArraySearch($arrayStartupSteps, $i)
               If  $arrayPos > -1 Then
                    GUICtrlSetData($splashText, "-- Found startup string!" & @CRLF, 1)
                    $startupTotal = $startupTotal + $startupIncrement
                    If $startupTotal > 100 Then
                         $startupTotal = 100
                    EndIf
                    GUICtrlSetData($splashProgress, $startupTotal)
                    If $arrayPos = UBound($arrayStartupSteps) - 1 Then
                         GUICtrlSetData($splashText, "-- Found last startup item, application done!" & @CRLF, 1)
                    EndIf
               EndIf
          Next
     Until $splashMsg = $GUI_EVENT_CLOSE
     Exit
EndFunc

[jawnah]

I was able to resolve this problem. If I'd read the included services control file a little better, I'd have realized I needed to name my main() function _Main(). Problem is somewhat resolved. Now that the GUI displays, I have a GUI updating problem, but I'll post about that in the other forum.