Windows Service using Thread.Sleep / Timers

Question

My first plan for the service project and the way the client (who is an IT professional) told me to make it was inside a windows service. After reading up, I understand that you should never use thread.sleep for long periods of time, you should also not user timers in services and windows task scheduler is buggy at best. I ask here for anyone with experience in what way they would approach this issue, sorry if I explain badly, I am not too good at that.

I was asked to make a service that checks as RSS feed periodically to see if a backup was successful or not, if it wasn't then the service sends an email. The problem I have is that in order to stop the service spamming send email and also the service only needs to check if backup failed once every 2 hours or so, both issues involve pausing the service for a extended amount of time which I am struggling with.

Sorry again if it was explained badly, but any help or a point in the right direction would be great.

`you should also not user timers in services and windows task scheduler is buggy at best.` Where did you read that ? — Habib, Oct 28 '13 at 13:25
I don't see a problem with a timer in a service. Just don't use the Winforms Timer. — Ralf, Oct 28 '13 at 13:25
I read that here http://stackoverflow.com/questions/246697/windows-service-and-timer — user1524116, Oct 28 '13 at 13:26
It says in the first line of the top answer that two types of timers work fine in services. — Trevor Elliott, Oct 28 '13 at 13:27
That is obviously a matter of opinion. Opinionated questions are not really the focus of stackoverflow. Both methods work. — Trevor Elliott, Oct 28 '13 at 13:31
Ok thanks a lot Trevor, I did not want to do something which was considered bad practice. — user1524116, Oct 28 '13 at 13:31
@user1524116, its talking about using a scheduled task, It depends on the situation. If I have to do something once a day, I would use scheduler rather than a timer, but If I have to check something every 5 minutes, a timer is a better option. — Habib, Oct 28 '13 at 13:32

Windows Service using Thread.Sleep / Timers

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