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In my organization we recently upgraded some servers from Windows Server 2003 to 2008 R2. In doing so we found a strange bug in how the AT command works. This is critical to an internally developed tool that deploys remote tasks to a large number of servers via AT. e.g.:

I schedule a one-time job for the next Friday, but Task Scheduler shows it will repeat every Friday.

Schedule job with AT Job scheduled incorrectly

The scheduled job does actually run correctly at the scheduled time. Then, it'll run again the following week, causing a myriad of problems.

This only happens on the 2008 R2 servers, but not on the older 2000 or 2003 servers using the same AT syntax. The result is the same whether running AT from desktop, from the scheduling tool, or locally on the server.

I'm aware I can use newer commands, like: schtasks and PowerShell. However, that would require development effort with the scheduling tool that we're trying to avoid. It's been a rock solid tool for a very long time.

Google and SF show no evidence this is a common problem. Can the AT command still be used for one-time tasks with 2008 R2?

spoulson
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1 Answers1

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Nope. Microsoft built a better mousetrap and you will need to start using it.

schtasks.exe replaces at.exe. at.exe is deprecated.

From here:

Schtasks replaces At.exe, a tool included in previous versions of Windows. Although At.exe is still included in the Windows Server 2003 family, schtasks is the recommended command-line task scheduling tool

And from here:

Features Deprecated

• Action: sendEmail

• Action: showMessage

• AT.exe

cmdline utility

Ryan Ries
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