Using command line to control Windows Scheduled Tasks

You can control, monitor, change, etc Windows Scheduled Tasks using schtasks from the command line. You can use it on your local machine or a remote machine such as a server.

In the examples below let’s assume that the Windows Scheduled Task you are interested in is called EventLogImport.

IMPORTANT: For any of the commands or examples below, you can add a /S and then the servername to execute the command against a remote machine running Windows.

Monitoring

Basic Info on local machine

schtasks /QUERY /TN EventLogImport

 

Basic Info for remote machine

schtasks /QUERY /S serverNameHere /TN EventLogImport

 

Verbose Info

schtasks /QUERY /V /TN EventLogImport

 

Verbose Info with CSV output to screen

schtasks /QUERY /FO CSV /V /TN EventLogImport

NOTE: Other options are TABLE and LIST. The /V is for Verbose.

 

To remove the header row you can use the MORE command to start reading at the second line

schtasks /QUERY /FO CSV /V /TN EventLogImport | more +1

 

Verbose Info with CSV output to file

This will clear the status.csv if it exists, else it will create a new file.

schtasks /QUERY /FO CSV /V /TN EventLogImport > c:\temp\status.csv

 

To append to the file if you call two or more of these in a row, use the >> instead of >.

schtasks /QUERY /FO CSV /V /TN EventLogImport >> c:\temp\status.csv

 

To remove the header row you can use the MORE command to start reading at the second line

schtasks /QUERY /FO CSV /V /TN EventLogImport | more +1 >> EventLogImportScheduledJobStatus.csv

 

Controlling

Disable a Scheduled Task

schtasks /CHANGE /TN EventLogImport /DISABLE

 

Enable a Scheduled Task

schtasks /CHANGE /TN EventLogImport /ENABLE

 

Other Commands

You can also create, delete, run, or kill scheduled tasks as well. For information on how to do this, I recommend typing schtasks /? at any command prompt.

For help on a specific switch, try one of the following:

SCHTASKS
SCHTASKS /?
SCHTASKS /Run /?
SCHTASKS /End /?
SCHTASKS /Create /?
SCHTASKS /Delete /?
SCHTASKS /Query  /?
SCHTASKS /Change /?
SCHTASKS /ShowSid /?