How can I raise an event every hour (or specific time interval each hour) in .NET?

System.Timers.Timer. If you want to run at specific times of the day, you will need to figure out how long it is until the next time and set that as your interval.

This is just the basic idea. Depending on how precise you need to be you can do more.

int minutes = DateTime.Now.Minute;
int adjust = 10 - (minutes % 10);
timer.Interval = adjust * 60 * 1000;  

You may find help from Quartz.net http://quartznet.sourceforge.net/

Here is an example of a lightweight system using thread timing and an asynch call.

I know there are some downsides, but I like using this instead of a timer when kicking off a long running process (like schedualed backend services). Since it runs inline in the timer thread, you don't have to worry about it getting kicked off again before the the original call has finished. This could be extended quite a bit to make it use an array of datetimes as the trigger times or add some more abilities to it. I am sure some of you guys out there know some better ways.

    public Form1()
    {
        InitializeComponent();

        //some fake data, obviously you would have your own.
        DateTime someStart = DateTime.Now.AddMinutes(1);
        TimeSpan someInterval = TimeSpan.FromMinutes(2);

        //sample call
        StartTimer(someStart,someInterval,doSomething);
    }

    //just a fake function to call
    private bool doSomething()
    {
        DialogResult keepGoing = MessageBox.Show("Hey, I did something! Keep Going?","Something!",MessageBoxButtons.YesNo);
        return (keepGoing == DialogResult.Yes);
    }

    //The following is the actual guts.. and can be transplanted to an actual class.
    private delegate void voidFunc<P1,P2,P3>(P1 p1,P2 p2,P3 p3);
    public void StartTimer(DateTime startTime, TimeSpan interval, Func<bool> action)
    {
        voidFunc<DateTime,TimeSpan,Func<bool>> Timer = TimedThread;
        Timer.BeginInvoke(startTime,interval,action,null,null);
    }

    private void TimedThread(DateTime startTime, TimeSpan interval, Func<bool> action)
    {
        bool keepRunning = true;
        DateTime NextExecute = startTime;
        while(keepRunning)
        {
            if (DateTime.Now > NextExecute)
            {
                keepRunning = action.Invoke();
                NextExecute = NextExecute.Add(interval);
            }
            //could parameterize resolution.
            Thread.Sleep(1000);
        }            
    }