Windows service start failure: Cannot start service from the command line or debugger

Watch this video, I had the same question. He shows you how to debug the service as well.

Here are his instructions using the basic C# Windows Service template in Visual Studio 2010/2012.

You add this to the Service1.cs file:

public void onDebug()
{
    OnStart(null);
}

You change your Main() to call your service this way if you are in the DEBUG Active Solution Configuration.

static void Main()
{
    #if DEBUG
    //While debugging this section is used.
    Service1 myService = new Service1();
    myService.onDebug();
    System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(System.Threading.Timeout.Infinite);

    #else
    //In Release this section is used. This is the "normal" way.
    ServiceBase[] ServicesToRun;
    ServicesToRun = new ServiceBase[] 
    { 
        new Service1() 
    };
    ServiceBase.Run(ServicesToRun);
    #endif
}

Keep in mind that while this is an awesome way to debug your service. It doesn't call OnStop() unless you explicitly call it similar to the way we called OnStart(null) in the onDebug() function.

To install your service manually

To install or uninstall windows service manually (which was created using .NET Framework) use utility InstallUtil.exe. This tool can be found in the following path (use appropriate framework version number).

C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\InstallUtil.exe

To install

installutil yourproject.exe

To uninstall

installutil /u yourproject.exe

See: How to: Install and Uninstall Services (Microsoft)

Install service programmatically

To install service programmatically using C# see the following class ServiceInstaller (c-sharpcorner).