Running Subversion as Windows Service

I was just reinstall my PC operating system so I need to reinstall everything once again and this include the Subversion version control system. I download Subversion 1.4.5 extract it to my Program Files folder, create a new repository and then start the svnserve so I can start to use it to keep my projects.

But there is one more thing that I need to do, how do I make the svnserve run as a Windows service instead of just run it from the command prompt from time to time I work with Subversion. Previously I know that there is a library that can make it run as a Windows service.

I start to Google it and found some other new way to configure the svnserve as service. I then tried this post and combined it with other people suggestion and it just works.

I am using Windows XP with SP2, to register a service we can use sc command. SC is a command line program used for communicating with the NT Service Controller and Services. So below is the command line:

sc create svn.local binpath= “%ProgramFiles%\Subversion\bin\svnserve.exe –service –root D:\Repository” displayname= “Subversion Repository” depend= Tcpip start= auto

Note: I found that copy pasting breaks the the command above, so I suggest you to just retype what was shown above.

And please note that a space between the equal sign above is required (key= value), so just type it as it is. When it success you can see the success message like “[SC] CreateService SUCCESS” following your command.

Now you should have the svnserve installed as Windows service and you can configure it to run automatically every time you startup your Windows box.