I wanted to install a backup solution, and made a go for using the Dropbox service.
What you need: Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit. Assuming installation was done in default directory.
1. Install Dropbox (I used version 1.0.10)
2. Choose preferences and uncheck “Show desktop notifications” and “Start Dropbox on system startup”
3. Exit Dropbox by clicking exit in the context menu that shows when right clicking icon in task bar
4. Execute at command line prompt:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Resource Kits\Tools>instsrv Dropbox "c:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Resource Kits\Tools\srvany.exe"
If everything went ok, the following will be displayed:
The service was successfuly added!
Make sure that you go into the Control Panel and use
the Services applet to change the Account Name and
Password that this newly installed service will use
for its Security Context.
Next is to change the user for witch the newly added service “Dropbox” runs under. Change this to Administrator.
5. Choose properties on Dropbox service.
6. Click on tab “Log On”
7. Click “This account”, and select Admimistrator. Set appropriate password.
8. Click Apply and OK
If this is the first time you have done this procedure for the administrator user, you will get an notification saying that the “Administrator user has been granted log on as service rights”
Next is to setup some registry settings for the service
9. Start > Run > regedit
10. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Dropbox
11. Create a new key “Parameters”
12. Add a new string value “Application”, (type REG_SZ). Set the value to the path to the dropbox.exe binary. Find the location by right clicking on the Dropbox icon on the desktop. Simply copy the path from there.
13. Close Registry Editor
14. Go back to Services, and start the Dropbox service
Now everything should be in place and work correctly.
Addition: It works fine to stop the Dropbox service, then start Dropbox and make changes in preferences etc, save changes and exit Dropbox. Then you can start Dropbox service again without problems. Work very neat actually. Running now on Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008 64-bit. On Windows Server 2008 you can just copy instsrv.exe and srvany.exe to a folder under Program Files and create the Dropbox service from there.
Do you think it is possible run two different instances as a service? One with an dropbox account and the other with another dropbox account obviously
I don’t think that will work out of the box, so to speak. As they will share the same registry settings in Windows. Maybe you could get it to work by making duplicate folders of the installation, and naming the services differently. But that needs to be tested of course.
Why are you looking for running to different accounts on the same machine?
It would work just fine as long as you install the new dropbox under a different user on the computer then name the service differently when you run the command line.
C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Resource Kits\Tools>instsrv Dropbox2 “c:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Resource Kits\Tools\srvany.exe”
and then navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Dropbox2
Would the process for installing SugarSync as service be similar to the one used for DropBox?
I’m not sure how sugar sync operates or functions, but the process for installing an application as a service should be the same.
Any idea why I would get “Could not start the Dropbox service on Local Computer.
Error 1053: The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion.
It does fire up dropbox as I see in the task manager – then kills it when it times out.
Thanks for the write up.
Greg
Could it be due to wrong referenced binary? Ie the path to be Dropbox executable is wrong?
I do think the path is odd for an install but it is the path the desktop shortcut refers to *and* it runs for 30 seconds then tosses the error and kills the process.
I am updating the .net software on the box (it is out of date and it’s on an out of date box – a 2003 server box)
I saw this but I don’t think it’s directly related http://support.microsoft.com/kb/839174
If you start Dropbox the regular way, with the Dropbox icon, will it run as it should then? What you could do is to uninstall the service and run Dropbox as a regular installation to see it that works. If it does, then I’m not sure what is wrong if you followed this tutorial. I have never experienced that kind of error in relation to Dropbox software.
I’m getting the same thing, did anyone every find a solution? I’ve tried a couple of different things but never can make the service run.
What OS are you running on?
This was a great help. Very clear and simple compared to some other solutions I had been researching for the same purpose. Thanks for taking the time to write this up.
Great tutorial, that we used on several occasion.
It also works with Google Drive. I’ve adapted your tutorial and would like to publish it on our web site, if you don’t mind?
Hi, that is just fine as you mentioned me as source on your blog
Nicely written, worked like a charm.
Hi all, I found a very simple way to run Dropbox in Win Server without loging in: using Task Scheduler, with option running Dropbox at System StartUp.
I tested on WinServer 2003, but as Task Schedule is everywhere, I suppose we can do it in other win version too.
What happens when you log off the server, is Dropbox still running then?
I am getting this when i try the about command prompt.
C:\Program’ is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program on batch file.
How do i fix this??
Try to enclose the whole path with “-marks. You can not have spaces in the path without enclosing them.
Everything worked great and service is running and starts automatically upon computer startup but it appears that the synching functionality doesn’t work unless the actual application is run (i.e. from the start>all programs>dropbox). Is this correct?
Yes. You don’t see the sync process or the icon in the task bar.
Oh, and thank you for posting this btw. Big help.