Possible to only initiate scheduled task if shortcut/button clicked?

Question

Hi,

I've created 2 tasks in Task Scheduler on my Vista PC start uTorrent at 2am then close uTorrent (and shutdown PC) at 7am. However i'd like to only like this task to run if I've clicked a shortcut - ideally show something in the tray as well if possible. But not sure how?

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

I managed to to something like this myself in windows 7, should be the same in Vista.

To do what you want you could create a scheduled task that starts utorrent, another to close it later and another to then shut down the pc, all timed to run every day at 2am. You would then create a task that runs a batch file to delete the other tasks every time you boot up.

You will have exported the first three tasks as XML files just after you created them and saved them somewhere.

The key is that you then create a batch file that, upon double clicking will create the scheduled tasks by importing the XML files. This will cause the tasks to run as before and shut down your pc afterwards. Next time you boot up your machine the tasks are deleted again by the first batch file.

Read up on batch files (simple command propt commands in a file that run when clicked) and the command-line interface for scheduled tasks. Type schtasks /? at the command promt for more info.

Hope that makes sense.