what is the difference between window service and scheduled task

Question

Hi I am new to Programming. I want to know that what is the difference between window service and scheduled task. Thanks in advance.

Muralidharan Deenathayalan · Answer

A scheduler will run a task when a specific event occurs. A Windows service runs all the time. The only thing services do specifically is listen for pause/restart/stop interrupts but this is rather trivial functionality compared to Task Scheduler. Sceduling jobs with the build in functionality is a perfectly valid use. You would have to recreate the full functionality in order to create a good service and unless you want to react to speciffic events I see no reason to move a nightly job into a service. Its different when you want to process a file after it was posted in a folder thats something I would create a service for thats using the filesystem watcher to monitor a folder. Hope this helps you.

Sam Hobbs · Answer

Also I believe that a service must execute wihout a UI. In earlier versions of Windows a service could make windows for a UI but I think the latest versions of Windows do not allow it. When an application is executed by the scheduler it can execute the same as if it was executed by a person. Whether the application is a service or not they need to report problems in a manner that will be noticed by someone. The programmer really needs to use as much error checking as possible; it is typical of programmers to write their programs without checking for errors which then results in catastrphic failure and then the programmer panics and thinks there is a big problem in the system. For beginning Windows programmers it is better to start with an application to be scheduled. It would be easier to work with. Then when the application has been developed and works well then it might be approriate to make it a service.

Mahesh Chand · Answer

Well said Murli. To just to add to Murali's a Windows Service also has several events you may want to use (Started Stopped Paused etc) that may be utilized for if you have a need for that. A schedule task is just an exe that will run when it is scheduled to run.