Microsoft’s Task Scheduler

The Task Scheduler is a component of Microsoft Windows and is automatically installed in several Microsoft operating systems. It provides the ability to run tasks at pre-defined times or after specified time intervals. Scheduled tasks allow you to run a document, computer program or script at any convenient time. Setting a time schedule for it to run every time you login, means that it will automatically carry out the task in the background.

By using Task Scheduler, you can schedule tasks such as to automate web testing and site monitoring or system tools like the Disk Defragmenter to run at a time that is most suitable. With Task Scheduler, you can: Schedule a task to run daily, weekly, monthly, or at certain times (such as system start-up).

Task Scheduler provides a friendly user interface is fully integrated into the operating system. The goal of the Task Scheduler is to merge a set of different tools to make a user's experience more reliable and pleasing. By providing familiar APIs across platforms, users can create property pages and dialog boxes that are specific to a given application and then to summon Task Scheduler's property pages as needed.

Standard Installation Guide

This guide is for a standard setup of Microsoft’s Task Scheduler on Windows XP.
Open Scheduled Tasks by clicking on “All Programs”, “Accessories”, and then “System Tools”. Click Scheduled Tasks.

To schedule a new task:

Double-click “Add Scheduled Task” to start the Scheduled Task Wizard, and then click “next” in the first dialog box. The next dialog box displays a list of programs that are installed on your computer, either as part of the Windows XP operating system, or as a result of software installation.
Use one of the following procedures:

If the program that you want to run is listed, click the program, and then click “next”.

If you want to run a program, script, or document that is not listed, click “Browse”, click the folder and file that you want to schedule, and then click “Open”.

Type a name for the task, and then choose one of the following options:

• Daily
• Weekly
• Monthly
• One time only
• When my computer starts (before a user logs on)
• When I log on (only after the current user logs on)

Click “next”, specify the information about the day and time to run the task, and then click “next”.
Any information about the date and time when running the task will vary depending on the selection that you made in the previous wizard dialog box. For example, if you chose “Weekly”, you must indicate the day of the week, the time, and if the task should run every week, every 2 weeks, every 3 weeks, and so on.

Type the name and password of the user who is associated with this task. Make sure that you choose a user with sufficient permissions to run the program. By default, the wizard selects the name of the user who is currently logged on.
Click “next”, and then click “finish” after you verify the choices that you have made.