Run Dropbox As a Windows Service on Windows Server 

I know there is a lot of post about this already but I ran into some issues and had to collect some info from various places so I thought I might as well share my experience with the world. The goal is to be able to run Dropbox (or any other application that doesn’t have built-in support for services) as a service in Windows. This means you do not have to log in to your computer to start Dropbox. It will start as soon as you turn on your computer and Windows has loaded.

1. Download Windows Server Resource Kit 2003 and install it.
2. You must of course have Dropbox and when it’s installed and running right click on it in the taskbar and choose preferences. Then uncheck “Start Dropbox on System Startup” and “Show Desktop Notification”. It should look like the image below.
   
3. Quit Dropbox.
4. Start cmd.exe and enter the following commands.// Make sure that your “srvany.exe” is in the correct // folder. Also make sure that you have sc.exe in some “path” // folder or run this command in the folder where sc.exe is. sc create Dropbox binPath= “C:Program FilesWindows Server 2003 Resource Kitsrvany.exe” DisplayName= “Dropbox Service” // This adds a reg key to your registry with the path to // Dropbox.exe. Make sure that your Dropbox.exe is at that location. reg ADD HKLMSYSTEMCurrentControlSetServicesDropboxParameters /v Application /d “C:UsersAdministratorAppDataRoamingDropboxbinDropbox.exe” // I dont know if this is needed but it doesn’t hurt. reg ADD HKLMSYSTEMCurrentControlSetServicesDropboxParameters /v AppDirectory /d “C:UsersAdministratorAppDataRoamingDropboxbin”Note 1! I got this error [SC] DeleteService FAILED 1072: when i executed the sc.exe the first time. I found this Stack Overflow thread that pointed out that you couldn’t have the Services Management windows open when doing this.Note 2! The other problem i had as i mention the comments was that the Windows SDK is installed to c:program files (x86) and not “c:program files” as all the examples i saw had. When i tried to start the service i gor an error saying “The specified file cannot be found” and that was because it couldn’t found “srvany.exe”. I thought it couldn’t find Dropbox.exe but that wasn’t the case.
5. When this is done start the “Services” Management App” (run -> search services and start “Services”). Right click on the “Dropbox Service”. Choose “Automatic” in the “Startup type” dropdown. Then click the “Log On” tab and choose “This Account”. Enter your current accounts username and password. This is needed otherwise your computer wont be able to access Dropbox.exe if it’s in a users folder.

I think that was all the issues I had. My sources for this post are the following.