A Guide to Windows Task Scheduler - Cron for WindowsWindows Task Scheduler is a very useful tool built into most versions of Windows, and it functions in a similar way to Cron on Unix systems.
![A Guide to Windows Task Scheduler - Cron for Windows A Guide to Windows Task Scheduler - Cron for Windows](https://cdn.lonewolfonline.net/uploads/2013/11/windows-xp-logo_gallery.webp)
To find out if a task scheduler is installed, open up your control panel from the Start menu. If installed, you will have an icon called "Scheduled Tasks". If not, you need to download it from the Microsoft website.
Open up the Scheduled Tasks applet, and you should have a window similar to this screenshot below.
![A Guide to Windows Task Scheduler A Guide to Windows Task Scheduler](https://cdn.lonewolfonline.net/uploads/2011/05/taskschedule2-300x92.webp)
I will show you how to create a scheduled task that runs a command every hour, but if you follow the Wizard, it is very straightforward to create tasks that run at a certain date or time. For this example, I will use my Internet File Downloader program to download a picture from the Internet every hour (a tutorial for this program will follow shortly).
This is the first stage of the Wizard; click Next to this one.
![A Guide to Windows Task Scheduler A Guide to Windows Task Scheduler](https://cdn.lonewolfonline.net/uploads/2011/05/taskschedule3-300x245.webp)
This next screen will allow us to run any of the programs Windows knows about, but on this occasion, Windows does not know my download tool, so click on Browse and select the executable you have extracted.
![A Guide to Windows Task Scheduler A Guide to Windows Task Scheduler](https://cdn.lonewolfonline.net/uploads/2011/05/taskschedule4-300x245.webp)
When selected, the following screen will be shown, allowing you to give your task a name and select a frequency for execution. The task I will be running is on the hour, but for now, click on "Daily" and we will change the time later. Click the following screen, and it will appear. You need to set Start Time to 00:01 (one minute past midnight - I'll explain later)
![A Guide to Windows Task Scheduler A Guide to Windows Task Scheduler](https://cdn.lonewolfonline.net/uploads/2011/05/taskschedule5.webp)
You can leave this as the default, as we will need to change the details to get it to run hourly manually. On the next screen, you must enter the login details you use. If you do not enter a password when you turn your computer on, enter your username ("Jane Doe" or "Owner") and leave the password boxes blank.
In the last box, you must tick the box that says open advanced properties so we can tell the scheduler that we want the task to run every hour.
![A Guide to Windows Task Scheduler A Guide to Windows Task Scheduler](https://cdn.lonewolfonline.net/uploads/2011/05/taskschedule6.webp)
When the Advanced properties have loaded, you will be shown a dialogue. Click on Advanced, and we can set how often to run the task.
Now tick the box marked "Repeat Task" and change it to read Every 1 hour until 23:59. This will cause the task to run every hour, 24 hours per day. If you only want the task to run between 9 am and 5 pm, you change the Start time in the box above and the Until time in the Advanced box.
![A Guide to Windows Task Scheduler A Guide to Windows Task Scheduler](https://cdn.lonewolfonline.net/uploads/2011/05/taskschedule8.webp)
Now, this will run the task every hour. However, my Downloader program requires some parameters to run properly. We must tell it where to get the file and where to put it once it's downloaded. Back on the task properties screen, key in the URL and Filename below to download the latest IR satellite image from the Met Office.
c:\download.exe "http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/images/ukir_sat_200705071700.jpg" "c:"
Click OK on all boxes and return to the Task Scheduler main window. If you right-click on our newly created task, you can click "Test". If everything is okay, you should have a JPEG image on your c: drive.