Get the practical reference to developing Windows services with Visual Basic 2008. Addressing the leading trend of software as a service, this guide illustrates how developers with intermediate Visual Basic skills can design and implement Web services. It addresses a critical gap in the developer literature today, showing that services can be developed with Visual Basic 2008 and are not restricted to XML-based applications or Microsoft Visual C#(r). Software as a service is changing the dynamic between rich and thin clients. As device types multiply, users expect always-on connectivity to link them to the robust Web and corporate applications they use on the desktop. Services, which offload data storage and processing tasks to a server, run efficiently on Web platforms on any device. Services do not need to be a complex coding task and this is the ideal resource for creating modern, service-oriented applications. It covers integration of services with other Microsoft technologies, including Microsoft BizTalk(r) Server, Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS), and Microsoft SQL Server . Plus, you ll get extensive code snippets and sample applications.

Part I Defining Windows Service 1 Writing Your First Service in Visual Basic 2008 2 Expanding Your Service with Threads 3 Services and Security Part II Creating Interactive Windows Services 4 Services and Polling 5 Processing and Notification 6 User Input, Desktop Interaction, and Feedback 7 Data Logging: Processing and Storing Data in SQL Server 2005 Part III Services That Support IT and the Business 8 Monitoring and Reporting with WMI 9 Talking to the Internet 10 Services That Listen 11 Advanced Security Considerations and Communications Part IV Advanced Windows Services Topics 12 Scheduling, Configuring, Administering, and Setting Up Windows Services 13 Debugging and Troubleshooting Windows Services 14 Adding Performance Counters Part V Appendices A Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIs) B Microsoft File Transfer Protocol Service C Microsoft SMTP Service