I have read in some threads that MSIX will start to support also windows services from the January build. But I only seem to find information of how to migrate an existing installer containing a service to MSIX. How should I do if I want to create a completely new MSIX bundle from scratch, containing a UWP project and a Windows Service? I can´t seem to find no information about this no matter how much i search. If someone have succeeded in this it would be vary appriciated to hear how you did this!
I have a sollution in visual studio containing a UWP project and a Windows Service Project. I try to simply add those two projects to a new windows application packaging project but no matter how I do this I only manage to install the UWP app from the created bundle. Is it still not possible to include the Service project in my MSIX? I get no errors when I build my sollution. I have simply added the UWP project and the service under "Applications" in my windows Application Packaging project.
I have also read that background tasks may be prefered to services in msix packages. But I am afraid that a background task may be a bit too limitied for my intentions. My main requirement for a service is not to have something running in the background, but to access functions outside the UWP sandbox. Like USB storage and other functionality. But maybe this can be achieved by a background task as well?
Maybe the MSIX sollution is a bad idea in my case, do you think I need to relay on some other packaging sollution for my projects instead? Like Wix or similar? I have very little experience in packaging installations so I prefer a tool that is as simple as possible.
The recommendation for apps in development is to use background tasks instead of trying to add a Windows Service.
For the case where you're trying to access content outside the UWP container, you can consider adding a desktop extension component to your UWP package and then using that for your required functionality. Have a look at this blog post for more details - https://stefanwick.com/2018/04/06/uwp-with-desktop-extension-part-1/