No system is an island - Using Windows And Tech Step By Step

Tasks,processes,commands can be scheduled in Windows through Task Scheduler.
But is it possible to do this through few lines using the command prompt?

This is where the "at" command is useful.



Administrator access is needed to schedule,modify or delete tasks using the "at" command.

Suppose the box needs to be shutdown at 7 pm today,this can be done by simply typing
at 19:00 shutdown -s



This will add this particular task in scheduler's queue which can be listed by typing just "at".
I recommend to first check the queue using this command to make sure there are no previous similar jobs queued to avoid conflict.

What if some files need to be copied from one folder to the other at a specified time automatically?
Again "at" is to the rescue.

To copy all files from the Documents folder to the Somedata folder at midnight, type the following line, and then press ENTER:

at 00:00 cmd /c copy C:\Documents\*.* C:\Somedata




If you want to delete scheduled tasks from the queue,issue the at /delete command,just issuing /delete will remove all scheduled jobs.

at 1 /delete deletes task with id 1
at 2 /delete deletes task with id 2
at /delete will delete all pending tasks



Feel free to try out the various nuances of at as it can be very quick and powerful to automate routine tasks.

Cheers.