i've gotta problem setting up a new custom service in windows 2000 server.

i'm attempting to get a hlds (half-life) server to run as a service so that it doesn't take up desktop / taskbar space and would be somewhat fault tolerant (restarts itself). i'm trying to setup the thing to take a set of paramters and start as a non privelaged user but when i try to put that information into the mmc service manager it tells me file not found. i know its refering to some registry key but i'll be damned if i know what keys it wants. does anyone know where i can find a REAL good faq / readme / tutorial on how to add custom services to 2k?

any assistance is appreciated!

TIA

--Vendetta

As far as I know, you cannot just run any .exe file as a service - I tried to do this with a program that I wrote about a month ago.

The .exe file has to have special code in it to respond to the Windows Service Control Manager. Most programs than can be installed as a service document some way sort of option like...

program.exe installasservice

If your a programmer, perhaps you could write a wrapper program with the SCM interface in it.

found out the trick.
srvany.exe is a program on the resource kit that interfaces with the control manager for you.
from there you tell it what program you want to run as a service and it'll run it for you. wonderful spiffy keen n all that except it doesn't provide for when your service program dies.
because srvany is technically your service the OS doesn't recognized that your real service has died and doesn't restart it. so half the point of creating your own service is null and void right there d: NERF. now i'm hunting for either a better interface or else a command line option to make it detect when your service dies.