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What are the differences between a web service and a Windows service?


What are the differences between a web service and a Windows service?

My experience has mostly been with Windows services, and I have never created a web service.

Do web services behave similarly to Windows services?
Can they have scheduling, run at certain times, etc.?
When you would use a web service in place of a Windows service, and vice versa?


Solution

  • They're about as different as two things can be.

    A Windows service is an application that runs without a user being logged into the system, usually to process some data on the machine that needs no user intervention to work with.

    A Web service is a website that, when contacted, returns XML (typically) in one of several standard formats for the service consumer to process.

    One can't be substituted for the other. They are fundamentally different.