Log4Net in a Windows Service

Requirement: I want a Windows Service

• under LocalService (and not LocalSystem see  Microsoft MSDN: Secure Hosting and Deployment of WCF Services )
• using Log4Net starting when the service's Main() method is called - so I can see if the service starts up at all

Seems easy, but wut - no logfile created!

The help at Apache FAQ: Why doesn't the logging in my service work? is fine, but maybe I just skipped over it - it took me a while to figure out that the problem of log4net not showing any results (meaning: writing out a logfile) was related to the windows service not being able to find my application.config file (cause the service was called from a different location than my output dir).

The Apache FAQ suggests using AppDomain.BaseDirectory which unfortunately fails when I want to initialize the logger in the Services Main() method due to Main being static. Copying the app.config to lets say c: and using

log4net.Config.XmlConfigurator.Configure(new FileInfo("c:\\\\app.config"));

works, but isnt exactly what we want - at least it should use some temporary or application-specific dir in %appdata%

edit: time to bang head against something again - a failure in the configuration file caused the problem.

This line allowed logging to a client-specific directory:

<file type="log4net.Util.PatternString"
      value="%env{APPDATA}\\\\ConSense\\\\Logs\\\\ConsoleStart.Log.txt" />