Monday, November 17, 2008

Windows Scheduler Task or Windows Service

I've noticed a lot of projects on which the developers add windows services when all they need is a console application running as a scheduled task (using the Windows task scheduler).

A windows service is a pretty good approach when you need to have something constantly running such as a network service to respond to client requests or a heartbeat service to check application health every couple of seconds.

However, if you've got a windows service running in the background waiting on a timer to execute some bit of code, then you might want to consider using a scheduled task. They're easier to debug, require less development effort and do their job reasonably well.

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