scheduled tasks / cron jobs under Vista

[John Goche]

Hello,

In Unix there are services called cron jobs which basically
are nothing more than processes scheduled to run
routinely every so often. I think these are called
scheduled tasks. So how do I set up a scheduled
task under Windows Vista Home Premium so that
for instance every day around 11:30 PM my laptop
powers off whenever I have left it switched on (so
that it does not wake up anybody in the middle of
the night which has been happening to me).

Thanks,

John Goche

 

[Jon]

Hello,

In Unix there are services called cron jobs which basically
are nothing more than processes scheduled to run
routinely every so often. I think these are called
scheduled tasks. So how do I set up a scheduled
task under Windows Vista Home Premium so that
for instance every day around 11:30 PM my laptop
powers off whenever I have left it switched on (so
that it does not wake up anybody in the middle of
the night which has been happening to me).

Thanks,

John Goche

Yep, they're called 'Scheduled Tasks' in Windows. You can set them up via
'Task Scheduler'.

Click 'Start' button > Type 'Task Scheduler' > Click the program that
appears above.

Scheduling the 'shutdown' process is one possibility

Start button > cmd > shutdown /?

Also

Start button > Help and Support > Click the links to find out more ...

 

[John Goche]

Yep, they're called 'Scheduled Tasks' in Windows. You can set them up via
'Task Scheduler'.

Click 'Start' button > Type 'Task Scheduler' > Click the program that
appears above.

Scheduling the 'shutdown' process is one possibility

Start button > cmd > shutdown /?

Thank you for your reply.
I have managed to bring up the Task Scheduler.
Could you please be more specific on how you must proceed after this?
I am not really experienced under Windows.

Thanks,

John Goche

 

[Jon]

Thank you for your reply.
I have managed to bring up the Task Scheduler.
Could you please be more specific on how you must proceed after this?
I am not really experienced under Windows.

See if this article helps

Schedule a task
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Schedule-a-task

NB You can find the same information by searching in 'Help and Support' (on
your start menu) for 'Scheduled tasks'

 

[John Goche]

Schedule a taskhttp://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Schedule-a-task

NB You can find the same information by searching in 'Help and Support' (on
your start menu) for 'Scheduled tasks'

Thank you for your reply. I have in fact run "Task Scheduler" from the
start menu
and created a task called "Shut Down Computer" and specified the
executable
C:\Windows\System32\shutdown.exe

However all this did was pop up a black command window after which no
shutdown of the computer took place.

Can anyone tell me what I did wrong?

Thanks,

John Goche

 

[John Goche]

C:\Windows\System32\shutdown.exe

Thank you all for your help. Just to close this thread...
I checked this program from the command line
and found out that all that was missing was a
switch:

C:\Windows\System32\shutdown.exe /s

Best Regards,

John Goche

 

[Jon]

You basically need to pass 'arguments' to your main executable
(shutdown.exe). If you have a Linux background then you're perhaps familiar
with these eg in bash shell commands.

You can see the list of possibilities via

Start button > type 'cmd.exe' > shutdown /?

If you double-click your task in the right pane in Task Scheduler, go to the
'actions' tab and click 'edit', then you can add arguments on the line 'Add
arguments (optional)

eg adding

/s /t 0

looks promising for an instant shutdown.


--
Jon




Thank you for your reply. I have in fact run "Task Scheduler" from the
start menu
and created a task called "Shut Down Computer" and specified the
executable
C:\Windows\System32\shutdown.exe

However all this did was pop up a black command window after which no
shutdown of the computer took place.

Can anyone tell me what I did wrong?

Thanks,

John Goche

 

[Jon]

Glad you sorted it. Ignore the post below. I should have downloaded a few
more headers before posting.