Windows 7's Task Scheduler

manveruppd

manveruppd

manveruppd

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Well, dealing with the new Task Scheduler has certainly been an adjustment - way more complicated than the barebones one in XP! But some things just aren't running very smoothly for me.

For instance, I've got one task designed to wake up the computer and start playing music every morning to wake me up (much nicer than an alarm). I've set action as "start a program" with the following command line:
Code: 
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Media Player\wmplayer.exe"
and the following arguments:
Code: 
/play d:\Music\Playlists\wakeup.wpl

(wakeup.wpl being a playlist I have prepared already).

My problem is that Scheduler DOESN'T ACTUALLY OPEN A WINDOW of Media Player! It DOES work, it launches Media Player and starts playing the playlist, but for some weird reason it only opens it as a background process, there's no window of it that I can interact with! This is annoying cause the only way I can stop it after I get up is to get into Task Manager and terminate wmplayer.exe manually - it doesn't even stop when I click "End task" within Task Scheduler!

It's driving me nuts, cause if this simple thing doesn't work properly how the hell is it gonna deal with more complicated tasks I might want to do?
 
you must have the permissions set wrong, as it sounds like its starting under system credentials and not your user credentials.
 
^was about to suggest that

Manually 'run' the schedule, and watch Task Manager with 'Show processes from all users' ticked

Could be running from the admin account, whereas you're in another user account..?


Just had a quick look myself, click the 'AT user account configuration' change it from System to your user
 
Hmm... Well, I AM the administrator, ie my personal account has admin privileges. But it´s definitely running under my user account, I just checked. I did set it to "run whether user is logged on or not" because I assumed it wouldn't run while the computer's sleeping if I didn't - doesn't Windows log you out when you suspend it? I definitely have the "hidden" option unchecked too!
 
Is wpl a Windows Media Player playlist? I've never used WMP I'll create one and have a fiddle

Edit, sorted it

Just set the application as your playlist, and not WMP


ie, the shortcut should just point at "d:\Music\Playlists\wakeup.wpl", no need for arguments etc
 
Last edited:
bledd. said:
Is wpl a Windows Media Player playlist? I've never used WMP I'll create one and have a fiddle

Edit, sorted it

Just set the application as your playlist, and not WMP


ie, the shortcut should just point at "d:\Music\Playlists\wakeup.wpl", no need for arguments etc
Click to expand...

This...

It's what I do, I like to sleep with a dvd going and so i'll run that in vlc at 3% volume with the sys volume right up then when the music starts it's really loud (been a rower/coach for years and always end up on 3 hours a night so need a loud alarm!!!)

A keyboard mute key is essential for me as it's how i avoid waking the entire house! I used to have ACDC back in black as my alarm, but I found it left me in a foul mood every day. Not to mention, when I watched iron man and it came on my heart rate jumped about 30 bpm! Now I use something a bit more sedate.
 
Setting the playlist itself or wmplayer.exe /playlist as my application makes no difference at all. In fact when I initially created the task I had the playlist as my application, and I had the same problem. I then changed to wmplayer to see whether it would fix it, but it worked in exactly the same way.
 
Solved, it was indeed the "Run whether the user is logged on or not" option, changed it to "Run only when user is logged on" and it opens up WMP just fine :)
 
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