Windows 98 Scheduled Tasks
On Window XP the ability to reliably schedule anything was severely limited and problematic. Tasks wouldn’t run if you were logged out, and if you changed your password tasks would fail with authentication errors unless you remembered to update each task.
Given these limitations I searched for an alternative and in previous posts I’ve talked about using Cron as a viable replacement for Windows Scheduled tasks.
This has worked great… on Windows XP at work. Recently while I was preparing for my presentation at CFUnited I discovered that the particular Cron package I was using ( nnCron ) did not work on Windows 7. I discovered this the night before my presentation!
On a whim I looked to see what the scheduler looked like in Window 7 and was presently surprised in the improvements made by Microsoft!
In Windows 7 you can hit the Windows menu and simply type “Task” and you will see an entry for “Task Scheduler”.
The interface has totally been revamped. Don’t panic – it is fairly intuitive after clicking around a bit.
Wndows 7 Task Scheduler
The interface is split into 3 panes. The left most pane is the list of tasks. The middle pane is where the task details are defined and the right pane is a quick menu to frequent actions.
To get started – hit Create Task in the right pane.
Right Pane - Action Menu
Create Basic Task… will allow you to quickly setup a task with limited options. Create Task… will give you more control.
New Options
The Create Task pane has several tabs – and clicking through them we can see many new option not available in the old Scheduled Tasks. You can now run tasks whether you are logged in or not.
New Options
There is too much to cover in one blog post but if you are using Windows 7 take a few minutes to click through and explore all the features. Between the available triggers (at log on, startup, on event, on lock, etc) and the actions (start program, send mail, display message) and conditions (on AC power, idle, etc) you should be able to schedule just about anything!
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You said ‘in Windows 7 hit the Windows menu’.
Where is the Windows menu? You never said, and I can’t find it?
I’m trying to locate my task schedular.
Lisa
by trial and error I think I found what you meant… did you mean ‘hit the windows start button’? I did that, and then keyed-in to the search-box the word ‘task’, then hit enter. Up came the task schedular as I was hoping….
Lisa – sorry I was a bit unclear. I did indeed mean the Start button. Sounds like you found it however!