Windows 10: Windows 10 Task Scheduler: How to program non-routine trigger

Hi
I am trying to set up a task to be triggered on the second day of every month, but not if that day is a Saturday.

Can anyone help please?

:)

 

Windows Task Scheduler does not trigger a task, after a PC-restart during the day

The problem:

I started my PC before the first Backup4all (my backup program) task schedule (at 10:00) and during the day all Backup4all backups were made correctly, with an interval of the programmed 1 hour.

At 15:45 I restarted my PC. No Backup4all backups were made from the moment the PC was restarted.

At 16:13 I made a screendump of the Windows Task Scheduler (see below).

You
can see in the attachment that Windows Task Scheduler updates the Next Run Time at about 16:00, but Last Run Time remains on the one before PC-restart.

So Backup4all is not triggered by the Windows Task Scheduler to backup.

At 16:33 a made a screendump of the Windows Task Scheduler screen again and you see in the blue frame that the Next Run Time is updated, but Last Run Time is not.

I also enabled the Windows Task Scheduler History and at 16:33 you see that the last event was from 15:00



Finally I used the Action "Run" in the Windows Task Scheduler at 17:17 and Backup4all started the backup successfully at 17:17:09.

Now the Windows Task Scheduler History also shows an event: that the task is completed



It seems that Windows Task Scheduler triggers the backup job correctly, when the PC is powered-on before the first task schedule time. After a PC restart or a daily power-on after the first backup should be made, the backup program is not triggered by Wimndows
Task Scheduler anymore.

I tried this by both the “Run task as soon as possible after a scheduled start is missed" checked and unchecked. In case of a check, the backup tasks are still not triggered by Windows Task Scheduler.

Does anybody has a solution for this problem, or is it a bug in the Windows Task Scheduler ( the problem started to occur a few month ago).

 

Windows Task Scheduler does not trigger a task, after a PC-restart during the day

Hi Jarius,



Thank you for your reply.

• On October 25, 2016, I checked the Windows Task Scheduler settings, according to your advice.
• The next morning I powered-on my PC at 09:30 and made a screendump of the Task Scheduler at 10:08.
  
  At that time 2 of my 5 scheduled backup task were triggered conform schedule and the according backups were carried out correctly (see the green framed surfaces in the 10:08 window below)
• I powered-off my PC at 10:12 and powered it on again at 15:45.

• At 15:50 I made a sreendump of the Task Scheduler window, where was indicated that 3 backup tasks were carried out correctly in the past at about 10:00 (see the green framed surfaces in the 15:50 window in the picture above).
• At 16:40 I made a screendump again. Now the backup task that were triggered after the first power-on at about 10:00, now were not triggered anymore (the red framed surfaces in the 16:40 window) and the backup task that were not triggered during the first
  power-on, were now triggered correctly at about 16:00 (the green framed surfaces in the 16:40 window).
• I also made screendumps again at 17:40 and 18:40. In both cases the backup tasks triggered during the first power-on at 9:30 were not triggered anymore and the backup tasks that were not triggered during the first power-on were correctly triggered with
  the scheduled 1 hour interval.

My conclusion:

• If my PC is powered-on before the first scheduled backup task, all backup job triggers are carried out conform schedule.
• After a PC restart the previously triggered backup task are not triggered anymore during the rest of the day.
• Only backup tasks that were not triggered before the PC restart, are triggered correctly after the PC restart.
• A manual run of a backup task always result in a correct backup task trigger.

This must be a bug in the Windows Task Scheduler.



I hope you will find a solution for this problem.



Best regards, Wim

 

Hi, you'll have realised you can't do that directly with te task scheduler, although you can of course start a task on the 2nd day of each month.

I would create the task so as to launch a small Autohotkey script, which would basically do this:

Assign today = value representing the current day ; Mon Tue Wed etc
If today NE Saturday then
Run the task you want to run ; Executed except on Saturdays
Exit

(That's not a script, merely indicates the very simple logic).

Autohotkey is a well supported free scripting language with a good forum and help file.
AutoHotkey

This command would help you obtain a string or number representing the day of the week

 

You could create a batch file (run daily) that returns day of week, jumps to specific location depending on day of week, then executes what ever command you want (assuming it can be executed from a command line)

you can download a batch file containing text below

Microsoft OneDrive - Access files anywhere. Create docs with free Office Online.

or create own.


I take no credit for this - it is an amalgamation of several batch files I found on web,

I tried it and it returns Tue which is today's date.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

@echo
setlocal enabledelayedexpansion
set DoW=Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
set /a Line=0
for /f "tokens=1-9" %%a in ('wmic Path Win32_LocalTime Get Day^,DayOfWeek^,Hour^,Minute^,Month^,Quarter^,Second^,WeekInMonth^,Year ^| find /v ""') do (
set /a Line += 1
if "!Line!"=="1" (set VarA=%%a&set VarB=%%b&set VarC=%%c&set VarD=%%d&set VarE=%%e&set VarF=%%f&set VarG=%%g&set VarH=%%h&set VarI=%%i)
if "!Line!"=="2" (set !VarA!=%%a&set !VarB!=%%b&set !VarC!=%%c&set !VarD!=%%d&set !VarE!=%%e&set !VarF!=%%f&set !VarG!=%%g&set !VarH!=%%h&set !VarI!=%%i)
)
for %%a in (Month Day Hour Minute Second) do (if !%%a! LSS 10 set %%a=0!%%a!)
set /a DoWIndex = DayOfWeek + 1
for /f "tokens=%DoWIndex%" %%a in ("%DoW%") do set DayOfWeekName=%%a
REM *** At this point, the variables DayOfWeekName, Day, DayOfWeek, Hour, Minute, Month, Quarter, Second, WeekInMonth, and Year are set.
REM *** Month, Day, Hour, Minute, Second have leading zeros if less than 10.
echo DayOfWeekName: %DayOfWeekName%

pause

if %DayOfWeekName%==Mon goto :mon
if %DayOfWeekName%==Tue goto :tue
if %DayOfWeekNamegoto :wed
if %DayOfWeekName%==Thu goto :thu
if %DayOfWeekName%==Fri goto :fri
if %DayOfWeekName%==Sat goto :sat
if %DayOfWeekName%==Sun goto :sun

:mon
:: put your processing here
echo %DayOfWeekName%
pause
exit

:tue
:: put your processing here
echo %DayOfWeekName%
pause
exit

:wed
:: put your processing here
echo %DayOfWeekName%
pause
exit

:thu
:: put your processing here
echo %DayOfWeekName%
pause
exit

:fri
:: put your processing here
echo %DayOfWeekName%
pause
exit

:sat
:: put your processing here
echo %DayOfWeekName%
pause
exit

:sun
:: put your processing here
echo %DayOfWeekName%
pause
exit

 

Dear Dalchina and Cereberus

Thank you both for your suggested solutions for my task scheduling problem.

When submitting my post, in the interests of brevity I did not mention that the task involved is alreading operating from Task Scheduler under other simpler triggers, and I was just hoping to be able to add an additional trigger.

However, at Task Scheduler appears to have no facility for subjecting triggers to logical processes, maybe I should look at scripting the whole thing.

Thank you also Dalchina for your reference to Autohotkey. I have downloaded it and it looks like a good resource to have.

You both contributed to alerting me to the possibility of scripting the triggers, for which I am grateful, and although I am not too experienced in scripting I am nonetheless happy to mark my post as solved.

 

Good.. Autohotkey is a remarkable scripting tool. You can use it for
- very simple scripts (like this one, which should be just 4 or 5 lines at most)
- writing complete programs
- manipulating existing Windows - e.g. clicking buttons, testing for presence, closing annoying popups etc etc
(that's supported by tools which let you inspect many window parameters so you can find the identity of elements in a window)

Scripts can be run as the source code alone (ahk files) or compiled with 1 click to produce an exe file.

There is a language sensitive editor to help writing scripts
SciTE4AutoHotkey Editor