Error 1053 the service did not respond to the start or control request

I just had the same problem.

It turned out it was because I was running it as a console in debug mode - like the code you have above

#if (!DEBUG)#else //debug code#endif

And I had compiled it in debug mode and installed the service

When I compiled it in release mode it worked as expected

Hope this helps

From MSDN:

Do not use the constructor to perform processing that should be inOnStart. Use OnStart to handle all initialization of your service. Theconstructor is called when the application's executable runs, not whenthe service runs. The executable runs before OnStart. When youcontinue, for example, the constructor is not called again because theSCM already holds the object in memory. If OnStop releases resourcesallocated in the constructor rather than in OnStart, the neededresources would not be created again the second time the service iscalled.

If your timer is not initialized in the OnStart call, this could be a problem.I would also check the type of timer, make sure its a System.Timers.Timer for Services. Here is an example of how to setup the timer in a Windows service.

//TODONT: Use a Windows Service just to run a scheduled process

I tried your code, and it seems ok. The only difference I had was to hard code the timer value (Service1.cs). Let me know if the below doesn't work.

Service1.cs

using System;using System.Collections.Generic;using System.ComponentModel;using System.Data;using System.Diagnostics;using System.ServiceProcess;using System.Text;using System.Timers;using System.Threading;namespace WindowsServiceTest{    public partial class Service1 : ServiceBase    {        private System.Timers.Timer timer;        public Service1()        {            InitializeComponent();        }        protected override void OnStart(string[] args)        {            //instantiate timer            Thread t = new Thread(new ThreadStart(this.InitTimer));             t.Start();        }        protected override void OnStop()        {            timer.Enabled = false;        }         private void InitTimer()           {                  timer = new System.Timers.Timer();               //wire up the timer event              timer.Elapsed += new ElapsedEventHandler(timer_Elapsed);              //set timer interval                //var timeInSeconds = Convert.ToInt32(ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["TimerIntervalInSeconds"]);              double timeInSeconds = 3.0;             timer.Interval = (timeInSeconds * 1000);              // timer.Interval is in milliseconds, so times above by 1000              timer.Enabled = true;           }        protected void timer_Elapsed(object sender, ElapsedEventArgs e)         {            int timer_fired = 0;        }    }}

Service1.Designer.cs

namespace WindowsServiceTest{    partial class Service1    {        /// <summary>         /// Required designer variable.        /// </summary>        private System.ComponentModel.IContainer components = null;        /// <summary>        /// Clean up any resources being used.        /// </summary>        /// <param name="disposing">true if managed resources should be disposed; otherwise, false.</param>        protected override void Dispose(bool disposing)        {            if (disposing && (components != null))            {                components.Dispose();            }            base.Dispose(disposing);        }        #region Component Designer generated code        /// <summary>         /// Required method for Designer support - do not modify         /// the contents of this method with the code editor.        /// </summary>        private void InitializeComponent()        {            components = new System.ComponentModel.Container();            this.ServiceName = "Service1";            this.CanPauseAndContinue = true;        }        #endregion    }}

I just created a blank Windows Service project and add the below so I could run installutil.exe and attach to the above to see if the event was firing (and it did).

using System;using System.Collections.Generic;using System.Text;using System.ComponentModel;using System.ServiceProcess;namespace WindowsServiceTest{    [RunInstaller(true)]    public class MyServiceInstaller : System.Configuration.Install.Installer    {        public MyServiceInstaller()        {            ServiceProcessInstaller process = new ServiceProcessInstaller();            process.Account = ServiceAccount.LocalSystem;            ServiceInstaller serviceAdmin = new ServiceInstaller();            serviceAdmin.StartType = ServiceStartMode.Manual;            serviceAdmin.ServiceName = "Service1";            serviceAdmin.DisplayName = "Service1 Display Name";            Installers.Add(process);            Installers.Add(serviceAdmin);        }    }}

In case anyone else runs across this in the future, I received the same Error 1053 when trying to start my Windows service on Windows Server 2012.

The issue ended up being that the service was developed targeting the .NET framework 4.5.1, but the Windows Server 2012 instance did not have that version of the .NET framework installed. Backing the service down to target .NET 4.0 fixed the error.