Fire timer_elapsed immediately from OnStart in windows service

Question

I'm using a System.Timers.Timer and I've got code like the following in my OnStart method in a c# windows service.

timer = new Timer();
timer.Elapsed += timer_Elapsed;
timer.Enabled = true;
timer.Interval = 3600000;
timer.Start();

This causes the code in timer_Elapsed to be executed every hour starting from an hour after I start the service. Is there any way to get it to execute at the point at which I start the service and then every hour subsequently?

The method called by timer_Elapsed takes too long to run to call it directly from OnStart.

Answer 1

Just start a threadpool thread to call the worker function, just like Timer does. Like this:

        timer.Elapsed += timer_Elapsed;
        ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem((_) => DoWork());
    ...

    void timer_Elapsed(object sender, System.Timers.ElapsedEventArgs e) {
        DoWork();
    }

    void DoWork() {
        // etc...
    }