Significance of Windows Service and scheduled Jobs

Question

What is the difference between Windows Service and scheduled Jobs in Windows? How to identify which feature has to be used? - Thanks Mahe

Mithun Pattankar · Answer

Windows Service are programs configured to run without manual intervention i.e. they can do stuffs automatically. Like SMTP services SQL Servers ASP.NET state Service etc. They run in background once they are installed configured you dont need to check again and again. Scheduled Jobs are programs run without manual intervention also but we have configure them at what times you need to run them like every 30 minutes 1 hours or every 10 hours. Suppose at 60 minute schedule job runs does it work as expected and it keeps quiet until another 60 min. Windows Services can also be configured to run like schedule jobs by using TIMER but that have it's own serious issues. In short words Use Schedule Jobs when you want them to run at certain times not always and use Windows Services if you want to them alive always. If you have any specific questions let us know.