Programming Windows® Services with Microsoft® Visual Basic® 2008

Writing Our First Code

Now we need to modify the service so that it does something useful. Initially this will not be a major change, but later on we will be expanding the service.

In Visual Studio, click the Tutorials.vb tab and you will again see the <OnStart> and <OnStop> code. We will modify both methods to write an entry into the Application log.

This simple application demonstrates the process of creating a service in Visual Basic 2008; modifying the design template provided by Visual Studio 2008; and creating, building, and then installing the service.

Click the <OnStart> method. Under the comments section, we’ll first add an error handler:

Try
Catch ex As Exception
End Try

You should never leave your code unprotected from exceptions, especially ...