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Turning your .NET Core 3 Worker Service into a Windows Service

Until the introduction of the Worker Service in .NET Core 3 I always used TopShelf to turn my console application into a windows service.

Let’s see how we can do this using the built-in packages…

  • Start by creating a new worker project from the command line(or open Visual Studio and search for ‘worker’ in the available templates)

dotnet new worker

  • Now add the following nuget package to our project:
Install-Package Microsoft.Extensions.Hosting.WindowsServices
  • Next we have to modify our program.cs file and add a “UseWindowsService()”.
  • That’s it!

Of course, you don’t have to believe me like that so let’s try to install our newly created windows service. This can be done through the standard Windows Service installer:

sc create ExampleService BinPath=C:\Projects\test\ExampleService\bin\Debug\netcoreapp3.1>ExampleService.exe

Now open up your services window and have a look:

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