Scheduler, main window

The Scheduler allows you to schedule tasks or programs under Windows XP or Windows 2003 Server. The Scheduler is not available with WinTask Lite. The Scheduler is not available under Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 2008 (use instead the Windows Scheduler - see Scheduler under Vista, Windows 7, Windows 2008 topic).

The Scheduler is a XP/2003 service, that's why you must have administrator rights to install it. Scheduler cannot be installed using Remote desktop. Setting up scheduled tasks using Remote desktop is not possible and the use of Remote desktop prevents scheduled interactive tasks to run (the interactive windows is locked when Remote session is disconnected - the only way is to keep the Remote session still displayed, not minimized).

Once you have installed it, you can start the Scheduler by clicking Start|Programs|WinTask|Scheduler. A message tells you that the service WTScheduler is not started. Click Yes to start it.

If the Scheduler has already been started, a red circle icon with a clock inside is present in the system tray. Click the icon to display the Scheduler main window.

On the left of the Scheduler main window, the "Service status" field displays whether the service WTScheduler (the Scheduler) is started (green traffic light) or not (red traffic light).

Four buttons are available on the left :

Starts/Stops the Service : Starts the WTScheduler service (or stops it if it is started).

Application log : Opens the Applications XP/2003 log ; all the Scheduler actions are written into this log. The events which are written include "The service is started", "The service is stopped", "The task xxx has been launched", "The delayed task xxx is launched because an other task was running when it should have been launched", "The task xxx has been asked to be launched immediately", "The task xxx has been abnormally ended", "The task xxx has been ended with an error", "The task xxx has been tried to end", "The task xxx has been forced to end", "Impossible to open the session for an interactive task (invalid session parameters)".

Services control panel : Displays the XP/2003 Services control panel.

New task : Creates a new task in the Scheduler task list. The Task properties dialog is displayed.

The status bar on the bottom of the window displays the current time, the current date and when the next task will be launched by the Scheduler.

The main window displays the task list. The "Status" field displays the Active/Deactivate status of the task. The "Running" field indicates if the task is currently running. The "Name" field displays the name of the task. The "Command" field displays the name of the .EXE or the .ROB that the task launches. The "Frequency" field displays how often the task is to be launched. The "Next run" field tells when the task runs next time. The "last run result" field gives the result of the previous run, if an error code is reported, you can see the meaning of the error code in Scheduler error codes. The "last run" field tells at what time the previous run occurred.

You can hide/display the different columns by right clicking one of the column label.

Double-clicking a line displays the properties of the selected task. A right-click displays a contextual menu with the same options as the Tasks menu.

Click the Scheduler options tab to set Scheduler parameters.