You can also start a service by calling the RegisterServicefunction. RegisterServiceis analogous to the RegisterDevicefunction, which is used to start device drivers running under Device.exe.

The ActivateServicefunction loads a service based on the information specified in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Services\< Service Name> registry key. RegisterDeviceenables you to define additional parameters, such as the instance of the service, which is specified in the dwIndexparameter. To load a specific instance of a service that has multiple instances running from the same DLL, use RegisterServiceinstead of ActivateService.

The following code example shows how to start the OBEX service using RegisterService.

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HANDLE hService = RegisterService("OBX",0,"OBEXSrVr.dll",0);

If the OBEX service is currently running on OBX0, Services.exe will return FALSE and set the last error to ERROR_DEVICE_IN_USE.

The response of a service to xxx_Init (Services.exe)is dependent on the service, although there are flags defined in the Services.h file for the dwContextvalue. The following flags are defined:

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#define SERVICE_INIT_STARTED 0x00000000 #define SERVICE_INIT_STOPPED 0x00000001

If the SERVICE_INIT_STOPPED flag is not set in dwContext, then the service is responsible for creating a thread, on startup, for it to call the acceptfunction. This scenario assumes that it is a network-based service. If the SERVICE_INIT_STOPPED flag has been set in dwContext, the service will not be required to create a thread because the service will be using super services to handle the accept thread.

Super service sockets associated with a service should be bound to that service if it has been loaded either at the Services.exe initialization or by using the ActivateService. A service that is started by calling the RegisterServicefunction requires an application to bind all ports to the super service if necessary. Services.exe does not automatically bind to the ports of a service that is started with RegisterService, even if the service has ports listed in the registry.

See Also