Installing a .NET 8 service via sc.exe - and then getting the Service path in c#

Question

So I have built my .NET 8 Windows Service, and used the "Publish" option before deploying the Service to my local - using the Single File "self-contained" option. I then copied that folder to one of our servers for deployment.

In PowerShell as follows:

sc.exe create "Mqtt Service" binpath="C:\dev\projects\..\NotificationServiceCore\bin\Release\net8.0-windows\publish\MyServiceCore.exe"

But in my code, I need to get the path to that deployed service - NOT the Windows temp folder.

This for example does NOT give it to me - System.AppContext.BaseDirectory; - it returns c:\windows\temp\.net\..

But I have caught the exception when trying to load my certificate file:

2024-06-14 12:59:35 (null) [5]  ERROR Certificate Exception in WsSecureClientOptions(). Check app config settings. The system cannot find the file specified.
2024-06-14 12:59:35 (null) [5]  DEBUG Path to Certificate File - C:\Windows\TEMP\.net\NotificationServiceCore\pxsSvFJpErHm9e18vOpihtHD3i7O1g4=\certificate2024.pfx

Why the file exception? It's because we do NOT include that certificate.pjx in our project build. We have a post-build event which copies that file to $(OutDir)

cd $(ProjectDir)
xcopy "..\certificate\*.*" "$(OutDir)" /F /Y

The issue here is that the pfx certificate file is not in that `c:\Windows\Temp.net..." folder.

And this is how I resolve to the Base Directory in my code:

string appBaseDir = System.AppContext.BaseDirectory;

Answer 1

Bottom line: Do NOT choose the "self-contained" and "Produce single file" options.

Instead, choose "Framework-dependent" and "win-x64" (or whatever's appropriate for your envir).

FYI: Now System.AppContext.BaseDirectory will indeed return the directory in which you have installed your Win service (i.e. and not the temp folder that I had previously seen with the self-contained option).

Your build files (.dll, .exe, .dll.config) will be deployed to ..\publish\win-x64 folder.