title: Communication between Windows Service and Desktop Application
body: <p>I know that similar questions have been asked before, but even after all my Googling I'm still completely lost.</p>
  
  <p>I've written a small Windows Service that does what my main application <em>used</em> to do in a background thread (it made sense to move it to a separate service for several reasons).</p>
  
  <p>When the background thread was running as a part of my application it would fire an event every time it finished working (updating a database, in this case) and I would use a timestamp from that event to grab the appropriate information to update the window. I don't think the specifics are relevant, but please let me know if you need more details.</p>
  
  <p>Now that I've got the database-filling stuff running as a service, the question becomes: <strong>How do I replace what used to be done by the event?</strong></p>
  
  <p>In other words, what's the simplest and/or most effective way to communicate a basic DateTime from my service to my app?</p>
  
  <p>I've never done any IPC before but started reading up on it and got thoroughly confused. <code>Named Pipes</code> seem to be my best bet so far, but I've been unable to find anything that helps me understand their functionality... All I've found are poorly-commented chunks of code or "tutorials" that go <em>way</em> deeper than I need, without clearly covering the basics.</p>
  
  <p>So, without being able to establish a good base, I'm a little stuck. <strong>What's the best method to implement simple communication that does what my event used to do and where can I learn the basics of that method?</strong></p>
  
  <p><strong>EDIT:</strong></p>
  
  <p>As always, everyone here rocks, thanks for all the quick responses. Gerrie's link turned out to be exactly what I needed (though I didn't know that's what I needed at the time).</p>