Installing Dropbox as a service on Windows Server 2003, 2008 (x64)

http://blog.dreamfactory.se/2011/01/20/dropbox-as-a-service/
http://www.forthphaze.com/blogs/?title=dropbox-your-windows-server-shares&

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.
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http://forums.dropbox.com/topic.php?id=2828

I Wanted to have Dropbox as a service running on my Windows Home Server (WHS). Having done this before it was a matter of minutes to get this done (writing down the steps took twice as long ;-))
Since Dropbox will normally only work when a user is logged in, we will have to install and use it first via remote desktop, before it can be turned it into a Service.
1. Remote desktop to your WHS as administrator
2. Get DropBox from the website Download it on the WHS console).
3. Install and configure Dropbox as you like. e.g. I made a special share on my WHS named Dropbox before the installation and linked Dropbox to this share. Then exit dropbox from the system tray.
4. You will need instsrv.exe and srvany.exe from the Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=9D467A69-57FF-4AE7-96EE-B18C4790CFFD&displaylang=en
5. Copy instsrv.exe to C:\Program Files\Dropbox
6. Copy srvany.exe to C:\Program Files\Dropbox
7. execute “C:\Program Files\Dropbox\instsrv.exe” Dropbox “C:\Program Files\Dropbox\srvany.exe”
8. execute c:\reg ADD HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Dropbox\Parameters /v Application /d “C:\Program Files\Dropbox\Dropbox.exe”
9. execute c:\reg ADD HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Dropbox\Parameters /v AppDirectory /d “C:\Program Files\Dropbox”
10. Delete or move the shorcut to Dropbox away from the startfolder (Start -> All Programs -> Startup) on the startmenu.
11. Move (cut/paste) ALL the files from C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Application Data\DropBox to C:\Documents and Settings\Default User\Local Settings\Dropbox
12. execute c:\net start Dropbox
Everytime WHS is (re-)started, Dropbox becomes active automatically.
Now if only there could be a drop box add-in to manage the Dropbox settings, since you cannot change them (only by logging in via remote desktop and copying the files as described in step 11 after the changes have been made).