I have written a C# console application that uses the Interop.domino.dll assembly to interact with domino / notes to create, update and delete documents. The application runs successfully when running it manually through a cmd prompt or through Visual Studio. However, when we try to set the application up as a scheduled task (running under a domain service account) it fails with the following error:
The error occurs as soon as we try to use an object from the Interop.domino.dll, specifically when try to create an instance of the NotesSession object as per the following:
After some investigation I found that the interop assembly requires a desktop to interact with and that if we ran the scheduled task with the service account logged into the machine that the scheduled was running on the scheduled task would run successfully. While logged in as the service account you could see that the application would bring up a svchost.exe window while the application was running and that is the reason it requires the desktop.
However, having the service account logged into the machine all the time is not an acceptable solution as it means that the account has to be logged in again each time the server restarts. There are also some security concerns around having about allowing a service account to login to machines.
So, I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions on how to get around this issue? Is there a way to suppress any UI that the assembly tries to show? Alternatively, can anyone suggest an alternate to a scheduled task which would achieve a similar result. What we need to do is:
We have thought about writing a similar application making use of the notes web services rather than the Interop assmebly and will go down that path if we can't get the console app running as a scheduled task. However, we would like to make use of what I have already written if possible.
Update 01/05/12
I have tried etting the NOTESNTSERVICE OS environment variable as per @dna-man solution. However, this did not solve the issue.
For now we have set the application up as a windows service running under the local system account and with interactivity with the desktop allowed. This is not ideal as it does not allow us to schedule it as easily and it is not running under a domain service account, but the application does work so we will go with this approach for now.
There was an answer that suggested this approach, but it seems to have been removed so I can't mark it as correct. I might leave the question open a bit to see if anyone else has any suggestions.
I ended up modifying the application slightly to set it up as a windows service running under the local system account and with interactivity with the desktop allowed. This is not ideal as it does not allow us to schedule it as easily and it is not running under a domain service account. However, this approach does allow the application to run without requiring an account to always be logged in and does allow for the interop UI elements to be shown (thus avoiding the error).
To schedule the windows service to perform the task at a set interval (which I set at once a day) I used the Timer solution proposed here.