So I'm creating a new .Net Framework 4.8 Web API in Visual Studio 2019 and I'm wanting to know how to create the API as a windows service? I can't seem to find any examples or online resources to do so. I can run the API locally in VS and it opens Chrome and shows the responses under the local IIS Server it spins up. How do I take this same project and compile it as a windows service while still using HTTPS?
Answer
Web API is fully capable of being self hosted on top of OWIN, and does not require IIS to run.
Web API self hosted is basically just a console app. So the techniques for turning a Web API console app into a Windows Service are the same as for any other .NET console app. You can use a service manager such as NSSM, or create a Windows service project directly (by inheriting from the appropriate classes, pretty messy) or use a library like TopShelf.
Note that it's generally not a good idea to directly expose this self hosted app directly to the public. IIS provides a lot of security benefits out of the box designed to protect against malicious requests. If you're planning to publicly expose it, make sure you stick a proxy in front of it that will fulfill those security needs.