How to create an Advanced Windows Scheduled Task

Task Scheduler enables you to automatically perform routine tasks on a chosen computer. Task Scheduler does this by monitoring whatever criteria you choose (referred to as triggers). And then executing the tasks when those criteria are met. You can use the Task Scheduler to execute tasks such as starting an application, sending an email message, etc. Tasks can be scheduled to execute in response to these events, or triggers. On how to create a Scheduled task with Windows Admin Center, and how to set up Windows server backup and create backup jobs. And how to create Windows Task Scheduler via the command prompt. In this guide, you will learn how to create an advanced scheduled task on Windows Server with Windows Task Scheduler. In this task, you will learn how to create an Advanced Windows Scheduled Task.

Create an Advanced Windows Scheduled Task

To perform these steps via the task scheduler, follow the steps below. Ensure you have your script ready and saved with the .ps1 extension. Search and launch the Task Scheduler Tool as shown below or from the Start menu,
– Select Administrative Tools and then Task Scheduler.

Kindly refer to these exciting guides.: Run or Edit and Delete Tasks via Windows Task Scheduler, Periodic Scanning: How to schedule Windows Defender antivirus, and how to fix Task scheduler errors and success code: What does code 0x41301.

This will open up the task scheduler Tool. Right-click on Task Scheduler or “under Actions”, and select “Create Task”

This will open up the create task dialog window as shown below.

- On the General Tab, Enter the Task Name
- Enter a description for others to understand what you are doing
- Select "Run whether user is logged on or not"

If this is not selected and the first option is used, the script may not run when a user does not log in. We have had a similar issue in the past.

Ensure to run with the highest privilege (Here you have to evaluate your security need). Here are some related guides: Wbadmin Email Alerts: How to monitor Windows server backup, and Error: Failed to create a scheduled task: The WS-Management service cannot

Note: If you are using an account with administrative privileges, the default user should be fine. If you are running a Command Prompt or PowerShell command, you can select the Run whether user is logged on or not option to prevent the command window from showing up when the task runs automatically.

If the task requires elevated privileges, check the Run with the highest privileges option. Learn what is new in Task Scheduler from this link.

Create a Windows Scheduler Trigger

Navigate to the Trigger Tab as shown below. Click on New, This will open a window where the trigger can be defined.

Since we are defining this task for Windows update, and maintenance are done just one in a Month, I will perform the following highlighted in red.

You can decide to have the updates installed on a particular day.

By selecting the Days and from the dropdown menu, you can select a date. When you are done creating the trigger, The following configured trigger will be displayed as shown below

Next. click on the Action tab

This will open a new Action tab as shown below

- Under the "Settings" section, in the "Program/script" field, specify the path for the application (Here you will have to select the script by browsing to the location or copy the script path to this field).
- Optionally enter the "PowerShell.exe" program path needed to run your script. When this is not select, your script cannot run.

Note: If you don’t know the path of the app, click the Browse button to find it. Also, if it is a known application like PowerShell or Command Prompt, all you need to do is to specify the file name.

Note: Use the "Action" drop-down menu and select the Start a program option.You can still use the Send an e-mail or Display a message option, but these are deprecated features, which means that they may or may not work because Microsoft is no longer maintaining them.

Add a Scheduled Task Argument

In the “Add arguments” field, you can specify arguments to run the task with special instructions. E.g., -NoExit -ExecutionPolicy Bypass C:\PATH\TO\SCRIPT\first_script.ps1. Using the “powershell.exe” command and the above argument, it’ll run the script named “first_script.ps1.” The argument “-ExecutionPolicy Bypass” ensures that the script runs successfully, and the “-NoExit” argument will prevent the window from closing after running the script.

When this step is complete, it will appear as shown below.

Note: You can also edit the Action after it has been created etc.

Next, click on the condition tab as shown above. For me, these settings are not applicable, but below is a screenshot of how it looks like 🙂

Also, on the settings tab, all needed

This will prompt you to enter your password as shown below

To view the configured task, click on the “Task Scheduler Library” and search for your configured task on the left pane of the Window.

To test this task, since the date we have configured this task to run is still in the future, we will manually run the task as shown below.

- For more information on how to run, edit, and delete a task using Task Scheduler GUI (taskschd.msc), see the following link.
- Right-click on the task and
- Click on run

In this same manner, the task can be disabled or also from the Actions pane. Now that you have selected to run your scheduled task, the status will change to running as shown below.

With the F5 button on your keyboard, you can use this to refresh the states

I hope you found this blog post helpful on how to create an Advanced Windows Scheduled Task. If you have any questions, please let me know in the comment session.