"Cannot get service name" because options for InstallContext need '-' prefix, not '/'.

[jacgoudsmit]

I just ported some software from .NET FrameWork to .NET Core and gratefully used this Nuget package to allow it to install itself as Windows service. I wanted to minimize the amount of work so I didn't want to re-architect my service to the new Worker Service architecture, at least for now.

That didn't work: the install failed with "Cannot get service name" and then rolled back.

It turns out that the problem was that I used a slash '/' instead of a dash '-'.

I don't know if the slash was officially supported in the .NET FrameWork code; the code I'm working on was based on some sample code on the Internet about 10 years ago. So I don't know if I should request that '/' be an alternate prefix character to '-'. I just wanted to post this as an issue because it took me a long time to figure this out, and maybe this is useful for others who run into the same situation.

Fragment of my code after correcting the problem:

        private static TransactedInstaller CreateTransactedInstaller(Type T)
        {
            TransactedInstaller result = new TransactedInstaller();

            // NOTE: the path option must start with '-', not '/'. The path must be the .exe file, not a .dll file.
            string path = "-assemblypath=" + System.Diagnostics.Process.GetCurrentProcess().MainModule.FileName;

            result.Installers.Add(new InstallerConsoleModule(T, null)); // Constructor checks the type
            result.Context = new InstallContext(null, new[] { path });

            return result;
        }