Windows service start failure: Cannot start service from the command line or debugger

Question

hi i'm getting this error

Cannot start service from the command line or debugger. A winwows Service must first be installed(using installutil.exe) and then started with the ServerExplorer, Windows Services Afministrative tool or the NET START command.

and i dont understand why im geting this error. And here is my code:

{
    string Hash = "";
    string connectionstring = ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["myConnectionString"].ConnectionString;
    SqlConnection myConnection = new SqlConnection(connectionstring);
    SqlCommand myCommand = new SqlCommand("GetNullHash", myConnection);
    myCommand.CommandType = CommandType.StoredProcedure;
    myConnection.Open();
    SqlDataReader rdr = myCommand.ExecuteReader();

    while (rdr.Read())
    {
        string filename = @"\\" + rdr.GetString(3);
        filename = System.IO.Path.Combine(filename, rdr.GetString(2));
        filename = System.IO.Path.Combine(filename, rdr.GetString(1));
        Hash = rdr.GetString(0);
        Hash = computeHash(filename);

    }
    myConnection.Close();
    return Hash;
}

Answer 1

Watch this video, I had the same question. He shows you how to debug the service as well.

Here are his instructions using the basic C# Windows Service template in Visual Studio 2010/2012.

You add this to the Service1.cs file:

public void onDebug()
{
    OnStart(null);
}

You change your Main() to call your service this way if you are in the DEBUG Active Solution Configuration.

static void Main()
{
    #if DEBUG
    //While debugging this section is used.
    Service1 myService = new Service1();
    myService.onDebug();
    System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(System.Threading.Timeout.Infinite);

    #else
    //In Release this section is used. This is the "normal" way.
    ServiceBase[] ServicesToRun;
    ServicesToRun = new ServiceBase[] 
    { 
        new Service1() 
    };
    ServiceBase.Run(ServicesToRun);
    #endif
}

Keep in mind that while this is an awesome way to debug your service. It doesn't call OnStop() unless you explicitly call it similar to the way we called OnStart(null) in the onDebug() function.