Installing Dropbox as a service on Windows

This is an updated post for some things have changed as of Windows Server 2008 R2. This solution is currently installed on Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1.
What you need: The file srvany.exe from the Windows Server Rresource Kit.

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. Copy the file srvany.exe to a folder under “C:\Program Files\Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit”
5. Execute at command prompt (you might need to run command prompt as administrator):

sc create Dropbox binPath= "C:\Program Files\Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit\srvany.exe" DisplayName= "Dropbox Service"

If the service was created successfully, you will recieve message:
[SC] CreateService SUCCESS

Next is to change the user for witch the newly added service “Dropbox Service” runs under. Change this to Administrator.
6. Choose properties on Dropbox service.
7. Click on tab “Log On”
8. Click “This account”, and select Admimistrator. Set appropriate password.
9. Set startup type to “Automatic”
10. 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”. DO NOT START SERVICE AT THIS TIME.

Next is to setup some registry settings for the service
11. Start > Run > regedit
12. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Dropbox
13. Create a new key “Parameters”
14. 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.
15. Close Registry Editor
16. Go back to Services, and start the Dropbox service