I have been running Openfire on a Windows 2012 r2 server for a few years now. While I’ve typically used the launcher, I upgraded to the latest version which now has the service option built in. While the service starts successfully and I can get to the admin interface, my clients are unable to connect. If I stop the service and use the launcher option instead, the clients connect successfully. Any thoughts?
Open TCP port 5222 in a firewall on your server to allow inbound connections. When you first ran launcher it probably presented you with a popup and you pressed Allow. This way you allowed inbound connections for the launcher app. Windows is not showing such popup for services though. So you have to open ports manually.