Acting on exit code in Windows Task Scheduler

Question

I have the following .bat script:

set /a num=%random% %%2
exit /b %num%

I would like to execute that batch script in Windows Task Scheduler in such a way that when the exit code is 1 Task Scheduler sends an email that the script failed.

I can create a different task that monitors the events, but I cannot see any difference in events based on the exit code of the bat script.

This is what the History looks like for both exit code = 0 and = 1.

The difference between exit 0 and exit 1 is that the eventId = 201 has a note in it saying what the exit code was.

Answer 1

The trouble with Task Scheduler is no matter what exit code is returned, the task always logs an Event ID 201 - Action Completed... which is correct... no matter what, the task completed even if the job that was run failed internally.

Looking further, clicking on the Details tab when viewing the logged Event, we can see the ResultCode in the EventData does get set correctly. So it's a simple job to filter that through the GUI right?.... well no... There is no filter beyond EventID. Now we have to write a custom Event filter to trigger on based on the ResultCode. The XML XPath query that we need is this:

<QueryList>
  <Query Id="0" Path="Microsoft-Windows-TaskScheduler/Operational">
    <Select Path="Microsoft-Windows-TaskScheduler/Operational">
      *[System[(Level=4 or Level=0) and (EventID=201)]]
        and
      *[EventData[Data[@Name='ResultCode'] and (Data='2147942401')]]</Select>
  </Query>
</QueryList>

So to break it down, we want:

Event log: Microsoft-Windows-TaskScheduler/Operational
Event Level: 4 or 0 = Information
Event ID: 201
And
Event Data: ResultCode = 2147942401

If we set the bad exit code to 1, why is ResultCode = 2147942401? because it actually returns 0x1 which is hexadecimal 0x80070001 which equals decimal 2147942401. So, to get the "Correct" Result code, you will have to find your event, and click on the Details tab, then you can find the "Correct" ResultCode to filter on.