---
title: Configuration for Windows services
description: How to configure the Elastic APM .NET Agent for Windows services by setting environment variables in the Windows registry.
url: https://www.elastic.co/elastic/docs-builder/docs/3410/reference/apm/agents/dotnet/configuration-for-windows-services
products:
  - APM .NET Agent
  - APM Agent
applies_to:
  - Serverless Observability projects: Generally available
  - Elastic Stack: Generally available
  - Application Performance Monitoring Agent for .NET: Generally available
---

# Configuration for Windows services
<important>
  While the APM .NET Agent supports automatic transaction creation for web frameworks such as ASP.NET and ASP.NET Core, it doesn't know where the "unit of work" starts for bespoke services. Therefore, it cannot start a transaction automatically. As a result, spans, such as those for outbound HTTP requests, aren't captured, as they expect a running transaction, and no trace data is generated or exported by default.To manually create a transaction around the appropriate unit of work for your scenario, instrument your code manually. You can start a custom transaction using the [Public API](https://www.elastic.co/elastic/docs-builder/docs/3410/reference/apm/agents/dotnet/public-api). Alternatively, consider using the [Elastic Distribution of OpenTelemetry for .NET](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/docs-builder/docs/3410/reference/opentelemetry/edot-sdks/dotnet), which captures all spans automatically, including those for outbound HTTP requests. The first span without a parent is considered a transaction when ingested into Elastic Observability.
</important>

Configuration for Windows services can be provided by setting environment variables for the specific Windows service in the Windows registry. With PowerShell
```powershell
$environment = [string[]]@(
  "ELASTIC_APM_SERVER_URL=http://localhost:8200", 
  "ELASTIC_APM_TRANSACTION_SAMPLE_RATE=1",
  "ELASTIC_APM_ENVIRONMENT=Production",
  "ELASTIC_APM_SERVICE_NAME=MyWindowsService")

Set-ItemProperty HKLM:SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\<service-name> -Name Environment -Value $environment 
```

The service must then be restarted for the change to take effect
```powershell
Restart-Service <service-name>
```