WinService Manager (Go)

A lightweight Go library to manage Windows services, including creation, deletion, start/stop, auto-restart configuration, visibility control (hide/unhide), and service status query.

✨ Features

• Create and delete Windows services
• Start and stop services
• Set service auto-recovery policies
• Hide/unhide services via SDDL
• Query service status
• Detect if service exists
• Written in pure Go, using golang.org/x/sys/windows

🛠 Installation

go get github.com/Firstnsnd/winservice

🚀 Usage

⚠ Requires administrator privileges.

Create, Start and Hide Service

package main

import "github.com/Firstnsnd/winservice"

func main() {
    name := "MyHiddenService"
    exe := "C:\\path\\to\\my-service.exe"

    err := winservice.CreateService(name, exe, true)
    if err != nil {
        panic(err)
    }

    _ = winservice.SetServiceHidden(name)
    _ = winservice.StartService(name)
}

Stop, Unhide and Delete Service

_ = winservice.StopService("MyHiddenService")
_ = winservice.SetServiceUnHidden("MyHiddenService")
_ = winservice.DeleteService("MyHiddenService")

Check Service Existence and Status

exists, _ := winservice.ServiceExists("MyHiddenService")
status, _ := winservice.QueryServiceStatus("MyHiddenService")

Set Recovery Policy

_ = winservice.SetRecoveryActions("MyHiddenService")

🧪 Testing

Run the unit test (requires admin permission):

go test -v ./...

Or specifically:

go test -run TestFullServiceLifecycle

🧩 Error Handling

All exported functions return wrapped errors. You can use errors.Is for specific error types:

err := winservice.StartService("svc")
if errors.Is(err, winservice.ErrServiceStartFail) {
	log.Println("Start failed with known reason")
}

📁 Project Structure

winservice/
├── service.go         # Core service operations
├── sddl.go            # Service hiding via SDDL
├── utils.go           # Some helper functions
└── service_test.go    # Full lifecycle test

✅ Requirements

• Windows OS
• Go 1.16+

📄 License

Apache License 2.0