How to Create, Modify and Delete Scheduled Ta... https://www.howtogeek.com/51236/how-to-crea...

How to Create, Modify and Delete Scheduled Tasks

from the Command Line
by Jason Faulkner on October 4th, 2010

Windows XP/Server 2003 introduced us to the SchTasks command line tool which
usurped the At tool o�ered in Windows 2000. This tool o�ers the ability to control every
aspect of your Scheduled Tasks through calls to this command.

While the wizard Windows uses to help you graphically create Scheduled Tasks is very
good, the command line tool is ideal for situations such as:

Manipulate tasks in batch scripts.

Control and create tasks on networked machines without having to login to them.

Mass create/sync task across multiple machines.

Use in custom applications to communicate with the Task Scheduler instead of

having to make API calls.

As you can probably imagine, the SchTasks command has more options than we can
cover in this article so we are going to focus on showing some examples of common
task con�gurations and what the respective task looks like in the Task Scheduler.

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Examples

Create ‘My Task’ to run C:RunMe.bat at 9 AM everyday:

SchTasks /Create /SC DAILY /TN “My Task” /TR “C:RunMe.bat”

/ST 09:00

Modify ‘My Task’ to run at 2 PM:

SchTasks /Change /TN “My Task” /ST 14:00

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Create ‘My Task’ to run C:RunMe.bat on the �rst of every month:

SchTasks /Create /SC MONTHLY /D 1 /TN “My Task” /TR

“C:RunMe.bat” /ST 14:00

Create ‘My Task’ to run C:RunMe.bat every weekday at 2 PM:

SchTasks /Create /SC WEEKLY /D MON,TUE,WED,THU,FRI /TN “My

Task” /TR “C:RunMe.bat” /ST 14:00

Delete the task named ‘My Task’:

SchTasks /Delete /TN “My Task”

Note: this will raise a warning which you will need to con�rm.

Bulk Creation

Like any other command line tool, you can include multiple instructions in a batch �le to
accomplish bulk creation (or deletion).

For example, this script:

SchTasks /Create /SC DAILY /TN “Backup Data” /TR

“C:Backup.bat” /ST 07:00
SchTasks /Create /SC WEEKLY /D MON /TN “Generate TPS Reports”
/TR “C:GenerateTPS.bat” /ST 09:00
SchTasks /Create /SC MONTHLY /D 1 /TN “Sync Database” /TR
“C:SyncDB.bat” /ST 05:00

Produces these tasks:

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The ability to do this is a quick way to roll out new tasks or change existing schedules to
many machines at once. As a way to ensure the tasks are updated, you could include the
appropriate SchTasks commands in a domain login script which will update user
machines when they log in.

Microsoft Documentation on SchTasks Command

SHARE: COMMENTS:

Jason Faulkner is a developer and IT professional who never has a hot cup of
co�ee far away. Interact with him on Google+

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