WSW - Windows Service Wrapper

💡 A tiny, practical tool that lets any executable or script run as a real Windows service, with zero boilerplate.

🚀 What is WSW?

Running background applications or daemons as Windows services should be easy — but in reality, Windows makes it tricky.

If you've ever tried to:

• Wrap a custom binary as a service
• Automatically restart a tool on failure
• Avoid writing a Windows service in C++ or wrestling with the Windows API
• Escape painful sc.exe syntax and quoting errors

Then WSW is for you.

✅ Features

• 🧠 Simple CLI interface: one command installs and starts your service
• ⚙️ Wraps any executable — even with arguments
• 💥 Automatic restart if the wrapped process crashes
• 🧼 Clean install/uninstall without needing sc.exe
• 📜 Logs every restart attempt and failure
• 💼 Built with pure Rust

🔧 Usage

🛠️ Install

# using cargo
cargo install --git https://github.com/ferama/wsw

or download a prebuilt binary from github release page

🛠️ Install your executable as a Windows service:

wsw.exe install --name myapp --cmd "C:\MyApp\app.exe --arg1 --arg2"

This will:

• Install wsw.exe as a Windows service named wsw-myapp
• Configure it to launch app.exe --arg1 --arg2
• Automatically start it

🧹 Uninstall the service:

wsw.exe uninstall --name myapp

Stops and removes the service cleanly.

🧪 Run manually (for testing):

You can also run it directly without installing as a service:

wsw.exe run --cmd "C:\MyApp\app.exe --arg1 --arg2"

This is how the Windows Service Manager internally starts it — useful for debugging.

🔍 How it works

WSW installs itself as a service and monitors a child process (your actual app).
If the child process exits or crashes, WSW logs the event and restarts it after a short delay.

This makes your app:

• Service-friendly
• Resilient to crashes
• Easy to deploy

📦 Use case examples

• Running a Go, Rust, Net, any other runnable app as a service
• Auto-starting a CLI tool with logging on boot
• Running off-the-shelf tools like Python or Powershell scripts in the background
• Easy service wrapping in CI setups or cloud VMs

📺 Prevent Windows Defender complaints

Windows Defender or other antivirus software might incorrectly flag wsw as a virus. This is because it uses low-level Windows APIs to install itself as a service, which can be interpreted as malicious behavior by some security tools.

To prevent this you can exlude the directory where wsw is installed from Windows Defender using a command like this:

Add-MpPreference -ExclusionPath "C:\Path\To\wsw"

Replace C:\Path\To\wsw with the actual installation path.

📄 License

MIT

❤️ Contribute

Got an idea or edge case? Open an issue or pull request — it's a tiny project, but it loves real-world use!