Communication between windows service and desktop app

Question

I want to create a communication between a windows service and a desktop application on Windows 7. I read that named pipes are one way for communication between two processe

Answer 1

sure you can use named pipes, WCF many other IPC methods.

for named pipe example among stack overflow questions, see here as well for some backgound:

Inter process communication using Windows service

also check this one: GUI and windows service communication

Answer 2

Go with WCF, it's a good solution to start.

Answer 3

As indicated above, there are lots of options available. Just be aware that if you go the TCP/IP route (e.g. WCF), the user will have to have a valid network connection (a loopback adapter will work) otherwise your client and service won't be able to communicate.