(888) 881-COREThe next version of Windows, dubbed Windows 10 is expected to be released in the second half of 2015. On October 1, Microsoft provided software makers with an early look at the new OS, so that we can test and certify our applications in advance of the launch. And like a kid in a candy store, we downloaded and eagerly installed the Windows 10 Technical Preview on a VirtualBox VM. The most noticeable change? The return of the Start menu! Finally, Microsoft has come to its senses.
Next, it was on to testing our software. Service Protector, which monitors and automatically restarts failing windows services, passed with flying colors. There with no issues whatsoever. Here it is happily monitoring the Print Spooler service:
However, things did not go as smoothly for AlwaysUp, our popular utility that runs any application as a windows service. We set up Notepad.exe as a service but quickly ran into trouble starting it:
After a couple of hours of debugging the code, it turns out that the problem is related to to the little-used user reboot notification feature recently introduced in Windows 8 & Server 2012. To avoid getting too technical, let’s just say that the new capability is simply not accepted by Windows 10. Using it causes AlwaysUp to fail to transition the service into the running state and remain in the starting state. And since no controls are accepted in the starting state, all the action buttons are grayed out and the service will remain stuck starting forever! The only way to stop the service is to disable all recovery actions for the service and forcibly terminate AlwaysUpService.exe from the Task Manager. A real mess!
We have reported the problem to Microsoft and hopefully they will resolve it before the official release of Windows 10 next year. If not, a change to our code to eliminate the user reboot notification feature will also fix the problem, so not to worry. We’ll stay on top of it 🙂
Is this fixed now?
Not sure yet. We’ll know more when our testing of Windows 10 concludes in September.
The problem with the user reboot notification feature remains in the early versions of Windows 10. Fortunately it doesn’t seem to have an impact on any AlwaysUp functionality so we are disabling it for now.