30. Command-Line and Automation Tools

Why is that so? As many power users and experienced administrators already know, it’s usually much faster to type a few letters to do a job than to take your hands off the keyboard and poke around at endless menus and screens with a mouse or your fingertip. In almost every Windows configuration, you can perform setting and diagnostic tasks from the command line with just a few quick keystrokes (after you’ve memorized the fairly cryptic things that you have to type, of course). Many important diagnostic tools, such as ping, tracert, and nslookup, are available only from the command line, unless you purchase third-party graphical add-ons to perform these functions.

Although the term batch file might bring back uncomfortable memories of the old MS-DOS days, batch files and program scripts are still powerful tools that provide a useful way to encapsulate common management functions. Together, command-line utilities, batch files, and scripts based on Windows Script Host and Windows PowerShell provide a complete set of building blocks from which you can develop high-level tools for repetitive or complex tasks.

In this book, we give you a quick introduction to setting up and using the command-line environment. We don’t have room for more than that. For much more detail, tutorials, examples, and many helpful tips on using command-line tools, check out Brian’s book Windows 7 and Vista Guide to Scripting, Automation, and Command Line Tools, published by Que. (The book’s title is now dated, but the content remains relevant.)

If Command Prompt is not one of the menu choices but Windows PowerShell is, see “Command-Line Access from the Power User Menu,” p. 693.

Alternatively, you could perform one of the following actions:

Right-click or touch and hold the Start button, then select Command Prompt.

Press Windows Logo+R; then type cmd and press Enter.

In the taskbar’s search box, type cmd and wait a moment. On most computers, “Command Prompt” will appear as the only search result. Press Enter to launch it.

Open File Explorer and select any folder or drive. Then select File, Open Command Prompt, Open Command Prompt.

On the bottom left of the Start menu, select All Apps and then locate Command Prompt in the Windows System section.

All these methods work equally well.

The main difference between a standard Windows application and a command-line program—which in Windows is technically called a console program—is that it doesn’t use a graphical display or pull-down menus. Instead, you type commands into the Command Prompt window to tell Windows to do something, and the programs type information back to you. Each command line starts with the name of the program that you want to run, optionally followed by additional information called arguments. Arguments tell the program what specifically you want to do. Each program has its own rules about what its arguments signify, which arguments might be required, and which are optional.

cd windows

If you want to change the current drive letter as well as the current directory, put /d on the cd command line, as in cd /d d:setup.

dir >listing.txt

lists the files in the current directory and stores the results in the file listing.txt. You could then type the command notepad listing.txt to view the results. By itself, > creates a new file or replaces an existing file. You can tack output onto the end of (append to) a file using >>, as in this example:

dir c:windows >>listing.txt

You can also send the output of one program to another program using | (the pipe character), as in

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dir c:windows | findstr /i setup

which lists the contents of folder c:windows and prints out only entries that contain the word setup somewhere in the name. One handy use of the pipe mechanism is to send output to the command more, which stops after it displays each screenful, so you can read through a long printout:

dir c:windows | more

When it stops printing, you press the spacebar to see the next screen.

There are more ways to redirect program input and output. For more information, visit technet.microsoft.com and search for “Using Command Redirection.”

The search path is defined by a list of folder names in the PATH environment variable, and the complete list of extensions that Windows looks for is defined in the PATHEXT environment variable. The default search path includes the following folders:

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C:Windowssystem32
C:Windows
C:WindowsSystem32Wbem
C:WindowsSystem32WindowsPowerShellv1.0

This means that you can run any program file, batch file, or script stored in the current directory or in any of these folders simply by typing its name. You can start both Windows programs and command-line programs in this way. For example, you just have to type notepad and press Enter to start the Notepad accessory.

If you create your own batch files, scripts, or programs, it’s a good idea to create a separate folder in which to store them, and to put that folder in the search path. We show you how to do so later in this chapter, under “Setting the PATH Environment Variable.”

The Power User menu has entries that launch a command-line window, but you must choose which command-line environment appears on the menu: either the traditional Command Prompt window or Windows PowerShell, which we discuss later in the chapter.

You can choose which environment appears on the menu by following these steps:

1. Press Windows Logo+X, or right-click or touch and hold the Start button.

2. Select Control Panel, Appearance and Personalization, Taskbar and Navigation, then select the Navigation tab.

3. To have the menu launch the traditional Command Prompt, uncheck Replace Command Prompt with Windows PowerShell. To have it launch Windows PowerShell, check Replace Command Prompt with Windows PowerShell. Then click OK.

The Power User menu actually displays two entries for your chosen command-line environment. The second entry has (Admin) added to the name. That selection launches an elevated version of the program that has full administrative access, as discussed in the next section.

For what it’s worth, if all you are doing at the Command Prompt is starting up programs by typing their names, either environment works equally well. As discussed later in the chapter, Windows PowerShell provides advanced processing tools within command lines, but basic commands like dir operate very differently in the two environments.

To learn more about User Account Control (UAC) and elevation, see “User Account Control,” p. 101.

When UAC is enabled (and we believe it always should be), you must take deliberate action to open an elevated Command Prompt window. Use one of these methods:

Press Windows Logo+X, or right-click the Start button or touch and hold the Start button. Then select Command Prompt (Admin).

If Command Prompt (Admin) is not one of the menu choices but Windows PowerShell (Admin) is, see “Command-Line Access from the Power User Menu,” p. 693.

If you have pinned Command Prompt to the taskbar, right-click the taskbar icon, right-click Command Prompt in the pop-up menu, and then select Run As Administrator.

Open File Explorer and select any folder or drive. Then select File, Open Command Prompt, Open Command Prompt As Administrator.

In the taskbar’s search box, type cmd. Right-click the Command Prompt result, or on a touch screen, touch and hold until the pop-up menu appears. Select Run As Administrator.

If you want, you can set a Command Prompt shortcut or pinned taskbar icon so that it is elevated by default. Right-click the icon. If you’re working with a pinned taskbar icon, right-click Command Prompt. Then, select Properties. On the Shortcut tab, click the Advanced button and check Run As Administrator. Be sure to rename the shortcut so that it’s clear that it opens an elevated prompt.

To be safe, do not use an elevated Command Prompt window for general-purpose work. Use it only to accomplish a specific task that requires elevated privileges; then close it.

Here’s an area where Windows 10 offers real improvements over previous versions of Windows. If you enable the new keyboard shortcut options and QuickEdit mode, you can copy and paste text in console applications just as you would in Windows apps. The mouse cursor selects text in a natural way, and the standard Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V keyboard shortcuts copy and paste, respectively.

To enable the new options, open a Command Prompt window as described previously. Right-click the window’s title bar and select Properties. Select the Options tab (shown in Figure 30.2) and make the following settings:

Under Edit Options, check all four boxes. Quick Edit lets you select text simply by clicking and dragging the mouse cursor. Insert Mode inserts rather than overtypes characters by default when you backspace and type more into a command line. Enable New Ctrl Key Shortcuts lets you use Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V to copy and paste and Ctrl+F to search for previous commands. Filter Clipboard Contents on Paste removes tabs from pasted text and turns “fancy” quotes and dash characters into their simple " and - equivalents.

Under Text Selection, check both boxes. Enable Line Wrapping Selection makes the cursor select text the way it does in a word processor, wrapping from line to line rather than selecting a rectangular region. (If you need to use the old rectangular mode, just hold down the Alt key while selecting text.) Extended Edit Keys enables a bunch of keyboard shortcuts that you can use to adjust the range of selected text before you copy it to the Clipboard.

While you’re at it, select the Layout tab and check Wrap Text Output on Resize. With this option checked, if text output in the console window wraps onto multiple lines, you can enlarge the window to untangle it.

The Extended Edit Keys option enables shortcuts such as Ctrl+A to select all text in the window, Ctrl+M to start “marking” (selecting) text at the cursor position, and Shift+End to extend the selection to the end of the current line. But there are way more new keyboard tricks than we can describe in our limited space here. If you’re interested, click the Find Out More About New Console Features link on the Options tab of the Properties page.

By the way, even with the new options enabled, the old methods of copying and pasting still work. To paste text into the window at the cursor location the old way, you can right-click the window’s title bar and then select Edit, Paste. Or you can use the keyboard: Press Alt+Spacebar and type E P.

To copy text from the window to the Clipboard the old way, right-click the window’s title bar and select Edit, Mark. Alternatively, press Alt+Spacebar and type E M. Use the mouse to highlight an area of the screen, and then press Enter. This copies the text to the Clipboard.

To get an idea of what’s available, see Appendix B, “Command-Line Utilities,” at the end of this book. And check out Brian’s book Windows 7 and Vista Guide to Scripting, Automation, and Command Line Tools.

For a general online listing, perform the following Google search:

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site:microsoft.com command line a-z windows server

At the time this was written, the first search result, titled “Command-Line Reference - TechNet - Microsoft,” takes you to the command-line listing that covers several desktop and server versions of Windows. Most of the commands don’t change from one version to the next.

Many commands display information about their arguments and syntax if you run them with the /? switch, like so:

dir /?

(By the way, in our books covering previous versions of Windows, I used to list many other program shortcuts, such as eventvwr.msc to open Event Viewer. However, in Windows 10, the Windows Logo+X shortcut menu provides a much quicker path to most of the useful management tools.)

In Windows 10, the initial environment variables for a Command Prompt window are configured using the GUI shown in Figure 30.3.

This dialog box has two sections: System Variables and User Variables. The lower section, System Variables, defines the environment variables set up for every user account. The upper section, User Variables, defines additional default environment variables just for the current user account. They add to or override the variables set up in the systemwide list.

To open this dialog box, if you are signed in with a Computer Administrator account, use either of these methods:

If you have a Command Prompt window open, type the command sysdm.cpl and press Enter. You might need to confirm a UAC prompt. Then select the Advanced tab and click the Environment Variables button.

Alternatively, open the Start menu, select Settings, type envir in the Search box, and select either Edit Environment Variables for Your Account or Edit the System Environment Variables.

You can now edit both the upper User Variables (personal settings) and lower System Variables (systemwide settings) lists.

If you are not signed in with an Computer Administrator account, the process is a bit trickier. Use either of these procedures:

To edit the systemwide settings, you can use either of the preceding methods, but you’ll have to select a Computer Administrator account and supply its password. Don’t change the upper (personal) part of the dialog box; you will be changing settings for the wrong account.

To edit your own personal environment variable list, open the Control Panel (one way is to press Windows Logo+X and select Control Panel). Then select User Accounts and Family Safety, User Accounts. In the task list at the left side, click Change My Environment Variables. You will be able to edit only the upper (personal) environment variable list.

After you have the dialog box open, you can create new variables, delete variables, or highlight and edit existing variables using the corresponding buttons.

If you need to alter a variable, you must understand what happens if a conflict exists between environment variables defined in both the System Variables and User Variables lists. As a rule, Windows examines several locations for definitions, and the last definition seen wins. Windows sets variables from the following sources, in this order:

1. The systemwide variable list.

2. The personal variable list. (At this step, the PATH variable is treated specially. See the next section for details.)

3. Commands set in autoexec.nt. (This applies only for MS-DOS or Windows 3.x applications. See “The MS-DOS Environment” later in the chapter for more information.)

4. Subsequent definitions issued by set commands typed in a Command Prompt window or encountered in a batch file. These changes apply only to that particular window and will disappear when the window is closed.

Because misediting the PATH variable can prevent Windows from finding applications it needs to run, Windows gives the PATH definition special treatment:

For the PATH variable, the User Variables definition is appended to the System Variables definition.

For all other environment variables, a User Variables definition overrides a System Variables definition.

In other words, you can enter your own personal folder(s) into the User Variables definition of PATH for your user account, without worrying about copying or messing up the system definitions.

To create a folder for your own scripts and batch files, use one of these two procedures:

If you want to use the scripts and batch files only for your own use, create a folder and put the full path to the folder into your personal PATH variable. For example, create a folder named c:scripts.

Then add a PATH variable to the upper part of the Environment Variables dialog box (refer to Figure 30.3) with the value c:scripts. If you need to add more than one folder to your personal PATH, put a semicolon (;) between each folder name.

If you want to create scripts and batch files that can be used by anyone who uses your computer, create a folder and be sure that its permissions are set so that all users can read it.

For example, create a folder named c:scripts. Right-click the folder, select Properties, and select the Security tab. If Users does not appear under Group or User Names, click Edit, click Add, and then add Users to the list. Be sure that the Read & Execute permission setting is checked.

To learn more about editing permissions, see “Setting Security Permissions on Files and Folders,” p. 754.

Carefully edit the PATH variable in the lower part of the Environment Variables dialog box (shown in Figure 30.3). Add a semicolon (;) to the end of the existing text and then add the folder name c:scripts.

Your folder now will be part of the PATH when you open a new Command Prompt window.

The 32-bit versions of Windows run MS-DOS applications inside a program called ntvdm, which stands for Windows NT Virtual DOS Machine. Ntvdm is also used by the Windows 3.x support environment. It simulates the environment that DOS programs expect and makes them work correctly under Windows. Ntvdm runs automatically when you attempt to start an MS-DOS or 16-bit Windows program.

Poke through each tab and use the ? (question mark) button for help on the settings. Educational and game programs often require you to adjust the Memory and Compatibility settings.

You can choose to further configure the MS-DOS and Windows 3.x environment by modifying Windows 10’s equivalent of the old CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files. These files, called config.nt and autoexec.nt, are used to configure ntvdm each time it’s started up. You can edit the config.nt and autoexec.nt files with a simple text editor such as Notepad. They’re protected files, however, so you must run an elevated version of Notepad using this procedure:

1. In the taskbar’s search box, type the word notepad.

2. When Notepad appears as a search result under Apps, right-click it and select Run As Administrator.

3. Confirm the UAC prompt, or enter a Computer Administrator password as requested. (Alternatively, you can just type notepad in an elevated Command Prompt window.)

4. Click File, Open and browse to windowssystem32. Select autoexec.nt or config.nt as desired.

Most of the settings used in MS-DOS 6 still work in config.nt, with some exceptions. For more information about configuring the MS-DOS environment in Windows, go to google.com and enter this search: site:technet.microsoft.com windows xp devicehigh. Select the result titled Devicehigh. The left pane will display a list of MS-DOS configuration commands.

DOSKEY—which has been enhanced significantly from the old DOS days—functions only in the 32-bit Windows console environment, and even if you attempt to load it in autoexec.nt, it does not function within the MS-DOS COMMAND.COM shell.

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net use lpt2: \localhostsharename

from the Command Prompt window, replacing sharename with the name you used when you shared the printer. Direct your DOS program to use LPT2. (You can use LPT1, LPT2, or LPT3, but you must select an LPT port number that does not have an associated physical LPT port in your computer.) Some MS-DOS applications know how to send output directly to networked printers using a UNC share name, so you don’t need to use the LPT trick with them.

For more information about the net use command, see “Managing Network Resources Using the Command Line,” p. 483.

A batch file, at the simplest level, is just a list of Command Prompt commands that have been typed into a file whose extension is .bat or .cmd. When you enter the name of a batch file at the Command Prompt, Windows looks for a file with this name in the current directory and in the folders of the PATH environment variable. Windows treats each line in the batch file as a command, and runs them one after the other as if you had typed the commands by hand. At this simplest level, a batch file can be a big help if you find yourself typing the same commands over and over.

Beyond this, there are several commands that you can use to write rudimentary programs within a batch file so that it can take different actions depending on what you type on the command line, or depending on the results of the commands it executes. These programming commands have been greatly improved since the MS-DOS days, so writing useful batch files on Windows 10 is much easier now. In particular, the IF and FOR statements have been greatly extended. You can prompt the user for input. It’s possible to manipulate strings and filenames and perform arithmetic calculations. You can create subroutines within a single batch file. And there’s more.

Unfortunately, we don’t have room to provide coverage of batch file programming in this book, but check out Windows 7 and Vista Guide to Scripting, Automation, and Command Line Tools, written by yours truly and published by Que.

Some Microsoft documentation is also available online. After reading this chapter, go to www.microsoft.com and search for these phrases:

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Command Shell Overview
Environment Variables
Using Batch Parameters
Using Batch Files
Using Command Redirection Operators
Cmd
Command-Line Reference

Then open a Command Prompt window and type the commands

help cmd
help set
help for
help if

and so on.

If you create a c:scripts folder and add it to the PATH, as discussed earlier under “Setting the PATH Environment Variable,” you might want to create these same batch files in that folder for your own use.

Scripts written for WSH can massage, digest, and manipulate text files and data, view and change Windows settings, and more. Scripts have an advantage over batch files in that they can perform complex calculations and can manipulate text information in powerful ways because you write them in a full-featured programming language. In addition, scripts can send email, manipulate files and folders, and even enlist applications such as Microsoft Word and Excel to present information in tidy, formatted documents and charts.

The “Host” part of the tool’s name comes from the fact that it provides a structure for running scripts written in several different programming languages. Windows comes with built-in support for two different scripting languages:

VBScript—Nearly identical to the Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) macro language used in Word and Excel.

JScript—Microsoft’s version of the JavaScript language, which is widely used to make web pages interactive. (JavaScript, by the way, is not the same thing as Java. Java is another programming language altogether.)

In addition, you can download and install scripting support for other languages. If you have a Unix or Linux background, for example, you might want to use the Perl, Python, or TCL scripting languages. You can get free WSH-compatible versions of these languages at www.activestate.com.

If you are already versed in one of the scripting languages mentioned here, by all means, use it. If you don’t already know a scripting language, VBScript is probably the best one to start with because you can also use it to write macros for Microsoft’s desktop applications. We use VBScript in the examples in this section.

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cscript //h:cscript //nologo //s

For instructions on opening an elevated Command Prompt window, see “Running Commands with Elevated Privileges,” p. 693.

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set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
set drivelist = fso.Drives
for each drv in drivelist
    if drv.IsReady then
        wscript.echo "Drive", drv.DriveLetter, "has", drv.FreeSpace, "bytes free"
    end if
next

Type this script into a file named freespace.vbs in your batch file directory, and then type the command-line command freespace. On my computer, this prints the following:

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Drive C: has 15866540032 bytes free
Drive D: has 27937067008 bytes free
Drive F: has 335872000 bytes free
Drive H: has 460791808 bytes free

WSH can also work with networking features. The following VBScript script displays your computer’s current network drive mappings:

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set wshNetwork = CreateObject("WScript.Network") ' create the helper object
set maps = wshNetwork.EnumNetworkDrives          ' collection describes mapped drives
for i = 0 to maps.Length-2 step 2                ' step through collection by twos
    wscript.echo "Drive", maps.item(i), "is mapped to", maps.item(i+1)
next

The following script lists the status of each system service installed on your computer. This script file can be named showservices.vbs. (The underscores at the end of some of the lines are part of the script.)

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set services = GetObject("winmgmts:{impersonationlevel=impersonate," & _
        "authenticationlevel=pkt}!" & _
        "/root/CIMV2:Win32_Service")    ' get services WMI info
for each svc in services.Instances_     ' display information for each service
    wscript.echo svc.name, "State:", svc.State, "Startup:", svc.StartMode
next

On my computer, the first few lines of output from this script look like this:

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AJRouter State: Stopped Startup: Manual
ALG State: Stopped Startup: Manual
AppIDSvc State: Stopped Startup: Manual

Remember, too, that because these are command-line programs, you can redirect the output of these scripts into a file. The following command puts the service list into the file listing.txt, which you could then view and edit with Notepad:

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showservices >listing.txt

We used the word strange. Can a computer program be strange? Definitely! For one thing, it’s object-oriented. Most Windows PowerShell commands (which are properly called cmdlets) generate streams of objects, not text. Objects are computer representations of real-world things. They have properties that describe attributes of the things they represent and methods that let you manipulate the things. For example, an object that represents a specific file on your hard disk might have properties such as Name, Size, and LastWriteTime, as well as methods such as Delete, Edit, and Open. Windows PowerShell works with objects in an unusual, and ultimately very powerful way.

If you type dir in a regular Command Prompt window, the command shell generates a bunch of text listing the current folder’s files by name. The dir command is programmed very specifically to print information about files in text form. That’s all it can do.

In WPS, typing dir also prints out a list of filenames, but something completely different happens behind the scenes. In WPS, dir is a shortcut for the Get-Childitem cmdlet, which in its simplest use generates a stream of File objects; each object represents one of the files in a folder, and each object has properties and methods (for example, name and size). When an object (of any sort) lands in the WPS prompt window, WPS prints out a line of text listing the object’s most important properties. For a File object, this includes the file’s name, size, and the date it was created. So, when you type dir, WPS produces a stream of File objects and they end up as a nice, tabular listing of files, as shown in Figure 30.4.

The result is the same as in the old Command Prompt environment but it’s happening in a general, more abstract way. The cmdlet doesn’t know about or care about text or formatting; it simply spits out a bunch of File objects. And the WPS window will turn any list of objects into a nice tabular listing. Files, user accounts, hard drives, Windows services—whatever.

In addition, WPS includes a full-scale object-oriented programming language and has access to Microsoft’s .NET programming platform, which means WPS scripts can perform complex computations and communicate with other computers and networked (cloud) services.

To open WPS and try it yourself, you can use any of the following methods:

In the taskbar’s search box, type powershell and then select Windows Powershell from the search results.

Press Windows Logo+R, type powershell, and press Enter.

In a Command Prompt window, type powershell and press Enter. When starting this way, you can type exit to return to the normal Command Prompt environment.

The PowerShell window appears as shown in Figure 30.4.

You can also choose to have Windows PowerShell appear on the handy Windows Logo+X pop-up menu.

To put Windows PowerShell in the pop-up menu instead of Command Prompt, see “Command-Line Access from the Power User Menu,” p. 693.

WPS lets you do complex things with objects right in a command line, without writing scripts or programming. You can use the familiar | (pipe) symbol to direct streams of objects from one cmdlet to another, and this lets you do very complex, specific things with tools that are separately very simple and general-purpose in nature. For example, the following command will list all files in the current folder that are more than six months old:

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dir | where-object { $_.LastWriteTime -lt (get-date).addmonths(-6)}

This command looks complex at first, but it’s not so bad. This command line strings two cmdlets together:

dir—Spits out a list of all the File objects in the current directory. Here, they don’t land in the WPS command window, so they don’t make a text listing. Instead, the pipe (|) symbol instructs WPS to pass the objects to the next command.

where-object—Passes just some of the objects through, based on the filtering condition inside the curly brackets. In this example, it passes through only those files that have not been changed for more than six months (that is, whose LastWriteTime value is less than the date/time six months back). So only the objects representing old files are passed on.

As we said earlier, you’re not limited to using commands that you type into the WPS window. WPS has a full-scale programming language with variables, loops, subroutines, user-defined objects, and so on. You can use these at the Command Prompt or in script files. You also can create shortcuts (called aliases) for commonly used commands and scripts to make typing easier, and a bunch of aliases are predefined for you.

For more information about WPS, check out Brian’s book Windows 7 and Vista Guide to Scripting, Automation, and Command Line Tools or the Sams book Windows PowerShell Unleashed, 2nd Edition.

What kinds of tasks would you run with Task Scheduler? As mentioned, the tasks need to run without user interaction. So they are typically maintenance tasks, such as defragmenting the hard disk, cleaning out temporary files, and so on. Windows uses Task Scheduler for this very purpose, and you’ll notice that several preinstalled scheduled tasks are set up when Windows is installed to do this very sort of thing.

Task Scheduler is especially useful with batch files and scripts because these scheduled programs can usually be designed to run without any user interaction. It’s truly the ultimate automation tool because you don’t even have to be there when it’s working!

There are several ways to open the Task Scheduler:

Click in the taskbar’s search box and type tasks. Then select Schedule Tasks from the search results.

Press Windows Logo+R, type taskschd.msc, and then press Enter.

At the Command Prompt, type taskschd and press Enter.

Then, in the left pane, select Task Scheduler Library.

You can create two types of tasks in Task Scheduler:

Basic tasks—Designed to be run using the current user’s account and to support a single triggering event or time.

Tasks—Can be run using any specified user account and can be configured to run whether or not the user is logged in. Tasks can also be run in Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 compatibility mode and can be configured to run with elevated priority if necessary.

To create a Basic task in Task Scheduler, follow these steps:

1. Open Task Scheduler as discussed earlier in this section. In the top-center pane, Task Scheduler displays a summary list of tasks that started and/or completed during the last 24 hours and also displays a list of active tasks below that. (Here, active means “defined and enabled to run at the specified time or event.” It doesn’t necessarily mean “actively running right now.”)

2. The Actions pane is located on the right side. Click Create Basic Task. The Create Basic Task Wizard opens.

3. Enter the name of the task and a description. Enter whatever you want, to remind you of what the task does. Click Next to continue.

4. On the Task Trigger screen, select when to run the task. You can choose daily, weekly, monthly, one time, when the computer starts, when you log on, or when a specific event is logged.

You can use the When a Specific Event Is Logged option to trigger the task when a specific Event Log entry is recorded. For example, you could use this to perform some sort of notification if a disk error event occurs. You’ll need to enter the event’s numeric ID number. (To find an event’s ID number, find an occurrence of the event in the Windows Event Log.)

5. Click Next.

6. If you chose Daily, Weekly, Monthly, or One Time, you are asked when to perform the task. Specify applicable time options, such as time of day, as required. Click Next.

7. Select what action you want the task to do (start a program, send an email, or display a message). Click Next to continue.

8. If you selected Start a Program, use Browse to locate the program, batch file, or script. (For Windows applications, browse in the Windows or Windowssystem32 folders. For third-party applications, search in the Program Files folders. For scripts you’ve written yourself, browse to the folder in which you’ve stored the script or batch file.) Then provide any necessary command-line switches or settings, as shown in Figure 30.5, and if you want to specify a default drive and folder for the program, enter the path to the desired folder.

If you selected Send an Email, enter the information for sender, receiver, SMTP email server, message, and so forth.

If you selected Display a Message, enter the message title and message text. Then click Next.

9. Review the task on the Summary screen. If you want to set advanced options such as idle time, what to do if the computer is running on batteries, and what to do after the task completes, check Open Properties Dialog for This Task When I Click Finish. Click Finish to complete the task.

For more advanced scheduling, use the Create Task selection. The Create Task interface uses a multitabbed interface instead of a wizard. The General tab includes security options, whereas the Triggers tab permits you to specify multiple triggers for a task (the task will be performed whenever any of the triggers occurs). The Actions tab supports multiple actions in a task; the Conditions tab includes options to configure idle time, power, and network connection requirements; and the Settings tab supports conditions for running and stopping a task. Use Create Task, rather than Create Basic Task, when you need these additional settings in your task.