Recipe 10.13. Viewing Scheduled Tasks

Problem

You want to view the list of scheduled tasks on a system.

Solution

Using a graphical user interface

From the Control Panel, open the Scheduled Task applet.

Using a command-line interface

The following command lists the scheduled tasks:

> schtasks /query

To get detailed information about each task, run the following command:

> schtasks /query /v /fo list

Using VBScript

' This code lists the scheduled AT tasks on a computer. ' ------ SCRIPT CONFIGURATION ------ strComputer = "<HostName>" ' ------ END CONFIGURATION --------- set objWMI = GetObject("winmgmts:\\" & strComputer & "\root\cimv2") set colScheduledJobs = objWMI.ExecQuery("Select * from Win32_ScheduledJob") for each objJob in colScheduledJobs    WScript.Echo "Job ID: " & objJob.JobID    for each objProp in objJob.Properties_        WScript.Echo "  " & objProp.Name & ": " & objProp.Value    next  next

Discussion

Another quick way to view the scheduled tasks on a system is to simply browse the Scheduled Tasks share point on the system (\\<HostName>\Scheduled Tasks). When you create a scheduled task, a job file is created that contains the settings for the task, which is placed in %SystemRoot%\Tasks. This directory is shared out as Scheduled Tasks. Unfortunately, the job files are stored in a binary format, so you cannot simply create or modify them with a text editor. You can, however, copy and paste jobs between machines. If you want to copy a job from HostA to HostB, open the Scheduled Tasks share point on both servers, right-click on the target job on HostA and select Copy, then paste the copy into the Scheduled Tasks share of HostB. Make sure any localized settings in the task are modified on HostB after the copy is complete.