Timeout waiting for service to start

[TFAlex]

We have an installer that, aside from other stuff, installs and starts a windows service. This service executes a database migration on startup, which can take quite sime time depending on the size of the customer's database. So sometimes it isn't started quickly enough and a prompt from advanced installer asks if the user should wait further for the service start or cancel the installation.

Is there a way to set a larger timeout, before this prompt appears?

[Catalin]

Hello Alex,

Please have a look over the following thread where my colleague Liviu is offering a solution for this:

How to set Automatic (delayed) service start

Best regards,
Catalin

[TFAlex]

Thanks for your post, but that doesn't answer my question. We already have the service set to delayed start due since SQLExpress must be running before our service starts.

The issue, that our service needs some time to start (sometimes even a few minutes) and (probably) advanced installer thinks that it's no longer responding due to the long start.

[Catalin]

Hello Alex,

Please note that the installation of the services are done through standard actions, proprietary to Windows Installer.

In our case, it's the StartServices standard action.

For your specific scenario, you might want to look into starting the service programmatically through a custom action to which we can perhaps add a delay, although I'm not sure this is possible.

As far as I'm aware, the service timeout time is set in the registry:

Is there a way to increase windows service startup timeout for a specific service?

Best regards,
Catalin

[TFAlex]

Thanks for your clarification.
I guess then we can only make try to make the service startup asynchronous, since we don't want to / can't play with our customer's registry.

[Catalin]

You're always welcome, Alex!

Yes, that indeed is not a good ideea, especially the fact that the machine will require a reboot after the changes.

Best regards,
Catalin