How to schedule a backup

[Bill W]

I am trying to setup a scheduled backup of my media files using MS backup
utility. As part of a test, I have scheduled a backup job to start within a
short time so I can watch it start to make sure that it's working okay. The
job scheduler shows the correct start date and time. At the time that the
job is supposed to start, nothing happens and the job scheduler changes the
last and next run times to "never." The only setting I'm not sure of is the
request for a password during setup. I have told it to use a blank password
because I don't use passwords on my system. Is not using passwords causing
my problem or am I doing something wrong? If I must use a password for the
backup process, does that mean that I must start using passwords to log into
XP forever? Thanks for your help.

 

[Tom Porterfield]

I am trying to setup a scheduled backup of my media files using MS backup
utility. As part of a test, I have scheduled a backup job to start
within a short time so I can watch it start to make sure that it's
working okay. The job scheduler shows the correct start date and time. At
the time that the job is supposed to start, nothing happens and the
job scheduler changes the last and next run times to "never." The only
setting I'm not sure of is the request for a password during setup. I
have told it to use a blank password because I don't use passwords on my
system. Is not using passwords causing my problem or am I doing
something wrong? If I must use a password for the backup process, does
that mean that I must start using passwords to log into XP forever? Thanks
for your help.

View the status of the task, that should provide more info. Likely you will
see that the task did not run due to the missing password. The only
workaround is to add a password to your account, and then set that same
password on the scheduled task. See the following KB article for additional
info:

Scheduled Tasks cannot run with a blank password
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310715

But adding a password to your account doesn't necessarily mean you have to
supply a password to log on to XP forever. After you have added the
password to your user account, enter the following in the Start, Run box:

control userpasswords2

This will open an alternate view of the user accounts manager. Go to the
Users tab and clear the check from "Users must enter a user name and
password to use this computer". Once you OK your changes a dialog will be
presented where you will need to enter the user name and password that will
be used to automatically log on to your XP PC. Enter your user name and the
password that you just created for your account.

Setting things up this way will allow you to run scheduled tasks but won't
require you to enter a password each time your computer boots up to log in
to XP.

 

[Keith]

I am trying to setup a scheduled backup of my media files using MS backup
utility. As part of a test, I have scheduled a backup job to start
within a short time so I can watch it start to make sure that it's
working okay. The job scheduler shows the correct start date and time. At
the time that the job is supposed to start, nothing happens and the
job scheduler changes the last and next run times to "never." The only
setting I'm not sure of is the request for a password during setup. I
have told it to use a blank password because I don't use passwords on my
system. Is not using passwords causing my problem or am I doing
something wrong? If I must use a password for the backup process, does
that mean that I must start using passwords to log into XP forever? Thanks
for your help.

If you mean Scheduled task ,select properties in your task and make sure
"Run only if logged on" is checked.