Inconsistent pg_ctl behaviour: start vs. runservice

Steffen Macke wrote:

[PostgreSQL 8.0beta1 on Windows 2000 Professional]

In case of a leftover postmaster.pid, pg_ctl start
tries to start anyway,
but pg_ctl runservice (as installer by the PostgreSQL
Windows installer) will not start the service, requiring a manual
removal of postmaster.pid.

Apparently no proper error code is returned on the service startup
failure - I couldn't get the service
recovery options to delete postmaster.pid (Tried batchfile and executable).

Yes, this pid file is a known problem we are researching.

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