Apr 11, 2011. Important note. Starting from Windows Vista interactive services are prohibited by Microsoft. Service application can not show forms even if it is marked as Interactive. SvCom suggests a workaround that allows to easily communicate with user from service application. Read more about this opportunity

Usually service has no access to the desktop of logged on user. So even the service shows one or more windows the user does not see them. Several methods exist that allow to interact with user from a service. A simple message boxes were considered in an Advanced NT Service example. Another way is to declare the service as interactive. Let's try it.

To make a service interactive two steps are necessary. First, service should be declared as interactive. Second, it should show some windows.

To declare our service as interactive go to the Object Inspector and set the Interactive property of service to True.

Doing so we say to the operation system that all windows of our service should be created in the visible desktop. It is a winlogon desktop if nobody is logged in other case it is a user desktop.

Now we have only one problem: how to create a Delphi form and show it from service. Unfortunately it is not so easy as it seems but it is possible and we shall do it on the next step.