Windows XP Task Management: no execution

Question

we used the following scenario sucessfully over a long period of time:

1. Remotely log onto a Win XP server, which is used by one user most/all of time
2. Schedule a task using the "task planner"
3. Task was run at "almost" each scheduled point of time (seldom it did not start, presumably when someone else was logged in).

For some time now, we share the server with several users. Even though I checked an option for running independently of the logged in user, this option does not seem to work. Now, the task is seldom executed, not seldom not executed.

Now, the question is: is there some other option I can't see which disables the execution OR, even better, is there some other tool which we can use for task scheduling on Win XP servers with several different users?

Answer 1

First of all, Windows XP is NOT a server operating system!

Second - you need to look in the Event Logs to find out why it is failing. Look for error events around the time of the schedule.

Answer 2

I'm not 100% sure where the option is on XP (I'm running Windows 7 at the moment), but there's an option that states:

Start the task only if the computer is idle for: XXX minutes

Is this option checked?

There are some additional options about waiting for the computer to become idle and stopping the task if the computer ceases to be idle.

Make sure these are all set to allow the task to start and continue regardless of whether any user is active or not.