XMLDRSpawner as a windows service

[randomprecision]

I'm trying to set up our network so that the distributed render Servers can be started remotely (i.e. via a windows service so it can be running in the background without user interaction).
I can set up the XMLDRSpawner Server manually (Start menu > Programs > Chaos Group > V-Ray for Rhino > Distributed rendering 64-bit > Launch the distributed rendering spawner), but there appears to be no way to get this to work as a windows service (Windows 7 SP1).
I could run the XMLDRSpawner at startup, but this will still bring up the window that a user might close. I'd prefer it as a service.
Am I missing something obvious, or is it just not intended to work this way?
Any help is appreciated.

[Micha]

A third party tool like firedamon could do the job.

[randomprecision]

Thanks for the feedback. I should have added I did try installing it as a windows service just through the command...
sc create VRaySpawner "c:\program files...\xmldrspawner.exe
It created the service, but the application would not load when started this way. It errors "Error 1053: The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion".

I downloaded the firedaemon software, and this works a treat. Thankyou for the suggestion, though I was hoping the VRay Spawner would do it natively so i can avoid 3rd party license costs.

[joe_b]

Our spawner doesn't have a builtin service, but a user of ours had some luck faking it by doing the following with Window's Task Scheduler:

1. make a bat file that launches "c:\the\path\to\xmldrspawner.exe 2> nul" ( where you need to to put in the actual full path of the xml spawner ). The 2>nul portion means to throw away the command line output, as things that are not run by users can't have output as far as I'm aware
2. put this file somewhere that is accessible to any user
3. Use windows Task Scheduler to create a job that triggers "when the computer starts" and launches that batch file

[Micha]

I think an advantage of a service process is, if it crash, it will be automatic restart. Could be great if the spawner could be started a service.

[randomprecision]

Thanks Micha and joe_b.
Both options appear to work, so thanks for the advice.
Agree, a service is probably a better solution, though for my requirements, I think I'll work with the task scheduler, as it's cheaper(free) and only required in a small-ish environment, so it should be easy enough to manage... I might have to reconsider if the business grows however. Hopefully a future release might have this capability inbuilt.
Again, thank you both for the tips, I believe I have a workable solution.
Regards

[wcmansp]

You might look for "srvany". It's a free utility, perhaps a little harder to find now, that lets you run apps, like XMLDRSpawner, as a service. You can control it through Microsoft's Sysinternals tools (also free), where the psservice tool will let you start (or, better, restart) the service remotely when you need to. We've run a small academic renderfarm this way for quite a while.