Running as a service

[ot]

Hi,

First, thanks for this neat and great bt program. I used to use Azureas (sp?), which takes up a lot of resources.

I have searched and don't think it has been brought up before, so here is my request: allow utorrent run as a service. This way, it can be run when no one is logged in to Windows, or another user is logged in. I suppose this requires separating the GUI from the torrent engine.

Hope I am not asking for too much. And thanks again.

[silverfire]

Personally, I don't thinking running anything unrelated to system maintenance as a service is a good idea. In addition, adding registry keys for autostart would work system-wide as well.

[Huck]

How To Create a User-Defined Service

[infirmus]

Personally, I don't thinking running anything unrelated to system maintenance as a service is a good idea. In addition, adding registry keys for autostart would work system-wide as well.

Services are not reserved for 'system maintainance', name a reason why you think its not a good idea to run other types of applications as services.

It is not the same as auto start registry keys, services still run when the computer is logged off as well (ie they dont close when a user logs off and another logs on). Running uTorrent as different users could cause problems too (eg what if one user is downloading to a folder that only he/she has permissions for).

How To Create a User-Defined Service

There would be no way to control uTorrent if it was created as a user-defined service (no GUI, no web interface, and if there was a web interface it would be half-baked compared to the proper GUI)

It would be great if uTorrent could be run as a service, and I would appreciate the functionality greatly, but as ot said it would require the devopers seperating the GUI from the actual bittorrent code, and I dont see this being very high on the developers list of things to do.

[paritybit]

How about setting it up so you autologin? suppose it isn't perfect but if you trust everyone else who uses the computer to switch user, it might work.

[bkman]

You can just use windows scheduler, no?

[slimy]

personally, i wouldn't use the feature and i don't really think this should be priority.

[canuckerfan]

bad idea imo. services are pretty useless unless they are ALWAYS running and i'd imagine a lot of people don't use utorrent that way.

[r00ted]

using the microsoft linked service page, I've had pg2 set up in that way.

But yea, i dont think it's necessary to have utorrent startup in this fashion.

[kneckedeck]

"Not necessary", "i don't really think this should be priority", "i'd imagine a lot of people don't use utorrent that way"...

Blablabla. Just guesses...

I think to have the option "Run as service" would be a great idea for all people with a home network and a server that is constantly on. This way you can auto-trigger torrents to start downloading on the server, and no resources are taken from the client, which can be switched off. Brilliant! I'd love to see that functionality!

And I don't think this is difficult to implement either...

[Miffo]

Look for another client

[VaidTalon]

This is exactly what I desire... I run a server at home that I wish to act as a "headless" torrent client, I would especially love having a web interface to access and control it, but with the ability to import torrent via a special folder, it's not really necessary.

As a developer, I know this is NOT that difficult to do depending on the original design. A "good" design usually seperates the actual operating tasks from the UI, so it's usually pretty easy to startup the tasks without having a UI present.

Throw in Pipe communications or a control port, and you can control from a thick/thin client interface.

If it were open source, I would be willing to do the work just to play with this nifty little app, but, as it's not, I'll vote for this feature! *raises hand*

[TravisOwens]

Getting support for uTorrent to run as a service is a good thing in multi-user scenarios, especially if more than 1 person uses uTorrent at the same time (although I admit that is a niche).

My PC (like many homes) is a multi-user environment, I can't stop people from rebooting the computer and I don't want my torrents dying Plus, the option to run uTorrent as a service allows uTorrent to function if I logout or if the system is rebooted. Obviously running as a service should be a feature disabled by default as it's not normal or expected behavior from programs.

And to anybody that thinks this is a bad idea, keep in mind there are tons of features you don't need but somebody else does. Considering I'm advocating this feature is disabled by default, means you have no reason to dislike it as it doesn't affect you

bad idea imo. services are pretty useless unless they are ALWAYS running

I for one leave uTorrent running 24/7, only leechers kill & close torrents.

How about setting it up so you autologin?

I'm not going to compromise my computer's security for no app

[kerio]

If you dont want create utorrent as a service for windows. Please let the others who really WANT - but this is important for people who want run it under srvany.exe service. (okay its not so secure, but not so insecure)

User Exit Programming Considerations

After a user exits a Win32 graphical application, all top-level windows receive the WM_QUERYENDSESSION and WM_ENDSESSION messages. Some Win32 applications stop running when they receive these messages. To keep a Win32 application running after a user exits, all Win32 applications must use the default Windows procedure when they receive these messages.

After a user exits a Win32 character-based application, the application receives a CTRL_LOGOFF_EVENT event from the console. To continue running a Win32 character-based application after a user exits, if the application registers a console event handler using SetConsoleCtrlHandler, it must ignore the CTRL_LOGOFF_EVENT event.

[SledgeDG]

The major problem I see here: most of the ppl answeing in this thread are unsure about what "running as a service" actually does

Advantages are clearly: it can run with privileges, different from the user currently logged on (i.e. your little Bro can play his games while uTorrent does its magic...and he might not even have the right to shut uT down

It has a greater fault tolerance compared to run as an application

you can configure, in case of a crash, that uT is restarted (or the comp is rebooted, which will restart uT as well if set to do so)

It runs even if nobody is logged on at all (as a matter of fact, services are started even before you get to the log on screen)

You could still start/stop uT manually if you so desire...either through Net start utorrent / net stop utorrent or directly through the services applet services.msc

You could set up a special account, set all rights as you need them and have uT use that account, so uT would have all rights it needs without running with admin privileges

There would be no way to control uTorrent if it was created as a user-defined service (no GUI, no web interface, and if there was a web interface it would be half-baked compared to the proper GUI)

Running as a service does not automatically mean no GUI

In the service properties under LogOn you have to check "Allow service to interact with Desktop"

That way uTshows up using it's GUI

Personally, I don't thinking running anything unrelated to system maintenance as a service is a good idea

What gave you that idea??? most of the trackers (like BNBT)and ftp servers(like BUlletproof, Serv-U etc) I know either run as a service or could be set up to do so. There is no general disadvantage to run applications that have to be avail 24/7 as a service

bad idea imo. services are pretty useless unless they are ALWAYS running

Think about this situation: you don't live alone....you have some D/L running or you are seeding some stuff and have to leave the house. How can you make sure nobody messes around with your comp (since you're still logged on) or closes uT on you (because some game doesn't run fast enough etc.)

There is no way of preventing anybody to mess around if uT runs as an application. If you run it as a service, simply log off and you're all set.

@kerio: why do you feel it wouldn't be as secure, running uT as a service?

Like I said...create a special account and set the rights as you need them to be

I just tried it out....and in less than 5 minutes uTorrent ran as a service on my W2K

just check this out ClickMe

The only difference I experienced....uTorrent as a service doesn't take the settings from it's normal place (%appdata%/utorrent) so expect to configure it when it starts up the first time

Since XP bases on the same NT kernel, W2K does, this method might work for XP users as well.

If not, then there exists some kind of M$ publication to tell you a different way

-DG

[Inf]

I would like to see an option to run uTorrent as service as well. And i mean as a "native" service, not using srvany or a similar helper app. It would also be nice to have an option to bring up it's user interface even when running as service.

[Ares]

@Inf: Agreed. Not to mention it would be a one-of-a-kind feature for µTorrent (I personally haven't seen another Bittorrent client do this). It would definitely encourage seeding, as well. This way I wouldn't have to keep my account logged in to download torrents. If I was in a multi-user environment, this would allow all the users to add their torrents to the same queue, instead of trying to run multiple torrents at once (which could really kill the bandwidth).

I don't see where it's a priority feature, but I think it would be a neat idea for the backburner. =)

-Ares

[1c3d0g]

SledgeDG: you're right. It'll kill a lot of the useless feature requests too, like "auto-start in boss mode" (or something), since running as a service can take care of that. This will kill many birds with one stone (and hopefully slow down the flood of feature requests).

+1.

[fnord]

yes please.

+1

[gdap]

+1, Absolutely, I'd love this functionality. I've tried SledgeDG's method, including running as the current user and as a local service with access to the GUI, but the GUI doesn't show up, and when I run uTorrent as normal it spawns another process.

Any ideas?

[Firon]

"Allow service to interact with desktop"?

[gdap]

Yeah, that option's checked.

[chaosblade]

Even after re-reading this thread i still dont get why uTorrent running as a service does any good. (Aside from filling mundane requests like auto-start in boss mode and other trivial things like that)

[HyToFry]

I run a windows server at my house. I use it mainly for downloading episodes, and I use the RSS reader to grab the ones I want.

The problem comes at the intro of "automatic updates." I can't leave the server completely unnattended, because I have to install the updates. (it's not a huge deal, but I'd rather configure it to auto-download and install.) Currently I can't do that, because that kills mooTorrent completely everytime it updates.

+1 for this idea. There's not a huge need for it, but there's certainly legitimate applications for the feature.

[Vectorferret]

I have no problems running it exclusively as a service with FireDaemon. The GUI is still there to use in my system tray as if I was running it directly under my account.

A bit torrent program designed to work as a service is a neat idea, but µT is not the client to do it with really. If we were doing that, I'd make the client even more bare bones, and then make a separate executable with the GUI to turn on when needed only; and of course, set up some kind of networking system to let the main service run on one machine, which is where it's really powerful. That way, you can use the full desired upload/download of the network and have multiple users on it torrenting. A dedicated service seems like a separate client though, but that might just be me,