Windows XP - Run task every minute

My company seems to be hit by a virus that calls shutdown -r on all workstations. Until IT figures it out, I want to:

run a console program (shutdown-a) every minute
without it flashing a cmd.exe window on the screen.

Any suggestions?

Cristi Diaconescu

Posted 2010-04-21T15:56:23.923

Reputation: 2 810

Answers

Seeing the timing does not have to be exact, I would just write a batch file like.

:Start
shutdown -a
ping -n 60 127.0.0.1
Goto Start

You do get one cmd prompt on-screen (which can be minimised), but it doesn't keep flashing up.

sgmoore

Posted 2010-04-21T15:56:23.923

Reputation: 5 961

cool. I like the 'think outside the box' approach. – Cristi Diaconescu – 2010-05-11T12:02:53.723

Could it be this problem http://www.f-secure.com/v-descs/msblast.shtml#details

Can you move shutdown.exe out of C:\windows\system32 temporarily? I do that on my XP machine and then from the command line shutdown -a fails, can't find the command

Running a command minimized http://www.winhelponline.com/blog/run-bat-files-invisibly-without-displaying-command-prompt/

Dennis

Posted 2010-04-21T15:56:23.923

Reputation: 56

Actually, it's probably because his company is using McAfee Anti-Virus. The DAT file pushed today is bad. McAfee Community Thread and ArsTechnica Discussion

– afrazier – 2010-04-21T18:18:03.820

Yep. Big plus to @afrazier. Those were a few fun days for everybody (especially the IT guys) in the company... Thanks McAfee! – Cristi Diaconescu – 2010-05-11T12:33:21.327

If you're able to install things, or just have python lying around anyway (Because let's face it, why not?)

import time, os
while 1:
    os.system("shutdown.exe -a")
    time.sleep(60)

Save that in a .pyw file, and run it. (I used this very basic idea to make a full-on scheduler a-la cron, to do all sorts of neat things. Useful!)

Phoshi

Posted 2010-04-21T15:56:23.923

Reputation: 22 001

Windows XP - Run task every minute - minimized?

Answers