How do I register a Bridge Windows Service Server for different instances?

A standard Windows Service can only be installed once. However, if multiple instances on a server want to use the Bridge Server, a separate Bridge Server Windows Service must be installed for each instance. This document describes how to do that.

With sc.exe, Windows Services can be registered with separate/display names. This is in contrast to InstallUtil.exe, which uses the default installation properties from the Windows Service itself.

Below describes the syntax for installing a Bridge Server Service for a development environment where the software is located in the subfolder 'dev' under Program Files. The service is given the display name 'NedFox Bridge Print Server - Dev'. This is the name as displayed in the grid of windows services via Services.msc.

sc create "NedFox.Bridge.Server.Service.Dev" DisplayName= "NedFox Bridge Print Server - Dev" binPath= "c:\Program Files (x86)\NedFox\Bridge Server\Dev\NedFox.Bridge.Server.WinService.exe" start= auto

The addition of '.Dev' after the 'create' command is just an example, it is the 'Service Name' value by which a Windows Service is registered. It can be any value as long as it is unique. The addition of '.Dev' in this example indicates that it is a Windows Service associated with 'Dev'.

The following command can be used to delete a registered Windows Service:

sc delete "NedFox.Bridge.Server.Service.Dev"

After this installation, the Bridge Print Server will be visible in the Windows Services and can be started. QA749 provides more information on the further installation and testing of it.