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How to Schedule Tasks in Windows 10 via Task Scheduler

Learn to automate your tasks with task scheduler.

• If you want to streamline your work, Task Scheduler is the right app for your Windows 10 PC.
• The basic system of this program is composed of 2 elements: triggers and actions.
• This tool enables different scripts and schedules to run at a specific time or event, depending on your needs.
• All planned tasks are indexed in a library, which organizes them according to their priority.

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Task Scheduler is one of the most practical preset Windows applications because it can streamline your work.

The main idea of this application is to trigger the running of different scripts and programs at a specific time or a certain event.

It has a library where all the tasks loaded are indexed, and it organizes them according to the time that must be done and their importance.

Let’s discover together in the lines below what Task Scheduler contains and how we can use this useful application.

How do I schedule tasks in Windows 10 using Task Scheduler?

• Types of triggers
• Types of actions
• Types of Task Conditions
• Task settings
• Task security context
• How to use the Task Scheduler

1. Types of triggers

The first step of creating a task is to determine what will cause it to run, so the trigger is a set of conditions that when fulfilled, starts the task.

There are two types of triggers: the time-based trigger and the event-based trigger.

• The time-based trigger is used for tasks that start at a certain time or tasks that starts periodically, depending on your schedule.
• The event-based trigger is used for actions that start at a specific system event.

For example, let’s suppose that on this day you want to recover a few hours of work, and you want to have the same productivity, even though you know you will work more than usual.

You can set a task to be triggered every time your computer is entering an idle state.

1.1. Triggers for a schedule

This kind of trigger causes the task to run after a well-determined schedule configured by you. From the trigger settings, you can choose if the task will be repeated once, daily, weekly, or monthly.

This time interval is guided by the computer’s date and time. You can check the Universal box for making the time interval relative and synchronize it with UTC (Coordinated Universal Time).

This feature allows you to coordinate multiple tasks to run independently in different time zones.

• The One time trigger is the easiest to set up. All you have to do is enter the day and time you want the action to take place.
• The Daily trigger is based on a recurrent system and the date and time you want to start using this kind of trigger.

The interval of 1 is producing a daily schedule, the interval of 2 is producing an every other day schedule, and so on.

• If you opt for a Weekly trigger you must enter the date and time you want to start this schedule, the days when you want to take place and how often to repeat. Recursion of this trigger is similar to the daily one.

For the interval of 1, the task will be repeated weekly, for the interval of 2, the task will be repeated every two weeks, and so on.

• The Monthly trigger does not have many differences from the others, you only need to select the week and the day that you want to activate your task.

The recursion system is the same, the only difference being that the minimum interval of repetition is one month.

1.2. Triggers for logging on

This type of trigger runs an action when a user logs onto the computer. It has a customization feature that allows you to set the action to occur for all users or only for certain users.

1.3. Triggers for idle state

This trigger determines the action to run after entering the computer in the idle state. The trigger conditions can be configured from the Conditions tab of the Create Task menu or from the Task Properties window.

1.4. Triggers for an event

The event-based trigger determines the action to run after an event occurs. You can choose from a predefined list of events but you can also set a specific event.

If you are choosing the Basic trigger settings, only one event from the specific event log will run the task.

If you choose the Custom trigger settings you can enter the XML event query or a custom filter for the events that can run the task.

1.5. Triggers on workstation lock

This type of trigger runs the task when the computer is locked. You can configure from the settings if this action will be available for any user or for a specific user. You can do the same thing for the unlocking station process.

1.6. Advanced settings of triggers

• Delay task for up to (random delay)

This feature allows you to insert a delay between the moment when the task was triggered and the moment when the task will take place.

For example, if you have a time based trigger, the task is scheduled to be triggered at 3:00 PM and you set the Delay task for up to (random delay) to 30 minutes, your task will be triggered in between 3:00 PM and 3:30 PM.

• Repeat task every:

Here you can set a repeating time for your task. So, after the task will be triggered, it will wait the amount of time specified and after that, it will be triggered again. This entire process will continue until the period allocated is done.

2. Types of actions

The action is the process or a part of the process that is performed when the task is running. A task can have up to 32 actions. Every action has some settings that determine how the task is performed.

You can find and edit the task’s actions from the Actions tab of the Task Properties menu or from Create Task window.

When the list contains more than one action, they will be executed consecutively starting with the action from the top of the Actions tab and ending with the action from the bottom of the list.

If you want to change the actions order all you have to do is to click on the action that you want to move and then use the arrow keys to move it above or below.

2.1. Action that activates a program

This kind of action is used for starting a program or a script.

In the Settings menu of the Actions tab, you enter the name of the script or the program you want to start.

If one of those sequences takes command line arguments you can add, delete and edit them in the Add arguments (optional) text box.

The Start In (optional) is the place where you can specify the directory for the command line that will execute your script or your program.

This should be either the path to the program or the script file that leads to the files that are used by the executable file.

2.2. Action that sends an e-mail

This action is particularly useful for people who communicate a lot via email.

In the settings of this action, you have to enter your e-mail address, the e-mail address of the person who will receive the mail, the title of the e-mail, the message you want to be sent, and you have also an optional feature to attach different files to the mail.

You must also specify the SMTP server of your e-mail.

2.3. Action that displays a message

This action is used more like a reminder because it displays on your screen a text with a title. Select the Display a message category from the Actions menu and type the title and the message of the reminder.

3. Types of Task Conditions

Task conditions decide if a task can run after it was triggered. Conditions are optional and their main role is to help you accomplish a more accurate task reported to the operating situation.

You can find them in the Conditions tab of the Task Properties or Create Task menu. Conditions are divided into 3 categories: idle conditions, network conditions, and network conditions.

3.1. Idle conditions

With this condition, you can tell the task to run only if your computer is an idle for a certain amount of time. Every 15 minutes, Task Scheduler is checking your activity to find out if your PC has entered into an idle state.

It is considered that your computer is in an idle state if the screensaver is on or if the percentage of CPU and memory operation is 0%.

As soon as the Task Scheduler has detected that your computer is in an idle state, it will begin the countdown of the length of time that has been set.

If you come back at this time and continue your work, the application will reset the task.

You can also set the time condition to 0 and in this case, the task will run when the application will detect that your computer has entered the idle state.

If the Stop if the computer ceases to be the idle condition is on, the task will stop running after the computer gets out from the idle state. Normally, this task will run just one time.

To run every time the computer remains inactive you have to check the Restart if the idle state resumes.

3.2. Power conditions

This condition is dedicated to laptop users because it follows the power method of the device.

While a computer receives a current flow of energy from a source, the laptop can run on a battery when you do not have a stable source of power.

With this condition, you can set a task to run when the computer is connected to a stable and continuous source of energy after the trigger was activated. You can also set a condition.

You can also configure the condition so as not to allow the task to run if the device goes on the battery power.

From these conditions, you can also create a task that will tell the computer to start from sleep mode and run the actions after it was triggered. Consider that this can happen during hours of rest and may create trouble.

To avoid this, make sure the device is at a distance where it cannot bother you or turn it off when you rest.

3.3. Network conditions

With this condition, you can configure a task to run if a specific named network is available or if any connection is available when the task is triggered.

If you consider that your task will need network conditions to run, you can also set this in the conditions.

4. Task settings

Task settings are indicating how a task run, is deleted, or is stopped. You can find the panel with all the available settings in the Settings tab from the Task Properties or from the Create Task menu.

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The following list contains a description of all the available settings.

4.1. Allow tasks to run on demand

Here you can specify if the task can be run manually before or after it is scheduled by allowing it to run on demand. You can set a task to run at any time on demand.

You find more information about the demand configuration in the How to run a task on demand topic of this article.

4.2. Run a task as soon as possible after a scheduled start is missed

This setting will assure you that a task will start running even if it could not run when it was scheduled from different reasons (the device was turned off, Task Scheduler was busy).

In the default settings, the Task Scheduler will not start the task immediately when the service is available. It will wait 10 minutes and then immediately start the process.

4.3. If the task fails, restart every time period

This setting will force the Task Scheduler to restart the task if the previous attempt was thwarted by an error.

You have to add the time interval between the running attempts and the number of attempts to achieve.

4.4. Stop a task if it runs longer than the time period

With this setting you can establish a time limit in which the task can run.

This setting is used for limiting the number of tasks that need a long period of time to execute and in this way you can save resources for your computer.

4.5. If the task is not scheduled to run again, delete if after a time period

This feature replaces an action that you should do it manually.

If you schedule a task to run only once means that you will not need it in the future and not unnecessarily load the list of tasks you should delete after you have used it.

This setting will delete automatically the task after a period of time set by the user after it was activated.

Remember, your task must include at least one trigger with an expiration date in order to select this setting.