Windows Task Scheduler

The Windows Task Scheduler makes it possible to create and alter scheduled tasks on Windows 2012, Windows 8 and higher, using WinRM to connect to the server. Older Windows version are not supported, because they are missing the ScheduledTasks cmdlet.

The task provides the following functionality

• Connect to a remote host using WinRM (Agent Pool), or create a local connection (Deployment Group).

  • Server(s): Connect to one or several servers. Server names need to be comma separated.
  • Username: The user needs to be a local administrator on the server. Only local admins are allowed to created scheduled tasks.
  • Password: Matching password for the local admin.

• Manual task creation

  • Create a new task
    • Task Name (folder\taskname)
    • Task Description
    • Task Actions (Multiple action per task are supported. One action per line)
    • Task can be enabled or disabled.
    • Trigger schedule (Run a task immediately, once, daily or days per week)
    • A task can run and be removed immediately after creation.
    • Start time
    • Trigger interval (Picklist can be altered. Minutes, hours and days are supported)
    • Trigger repetition (Picklist can be altered. Minutes and hours are supported)
    • Security -> runas domain\user*
  • Alter existing task
    • A task can be altered with all the options listed above.

[*] Username/Password, System accounts (NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM for example) and group managed service accounts (gMSA) are supported. gMSA accounts are recognized by the $ behind the username. i.e. domain\gsmauser$

• Create a task based on XML files

  • Task Name (folder\taskname)
  • XML location

  XML location can be either 1 file $(System.DefaultWorkingDirectory)\schedulers\task1.xml or a wildcard selection $(System.DefaultWorkingDirectory)\schedulers\*.xml

The XML file can be exported with Powershell (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/scheduledtasks/export-scheduledtask), or you can open the task scheduler in windows, right-click the task you want to export and select export.

Using gMSA in a XML is possible. The XML needs to contain the following information for that:

<Principals>
    <Principal>
        <LogonType>Password</LogonType>
        <UserId>DOMAIN\UserName$</UserId>
    </Principal>
</Principals>

Changelog

v5 changes

• Possibilty to keep the state of the scheduled task as it currently sits on the server (enabled or disabled)

v4 changes

• gMSA support
• Cleaner interface for deploment group usage
• Wildcard usage for the XML location

v3 changes

• Added XML file support. This is a handy feature for importing tasks that need settings that the 'manual' creation of this task doesn't support.