How to move files into an zip archive from a batfile

Do you have access to the source code for the program for debugging? It sounds like the windows creation is failing because there's no windows desktop available to the program unless the task owner is logged into the machine. This article http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms687105%28VS.85%29.aspx describes the process for window station and desktop creation.

Posting suyao's answer here:

for /F "skip=1" %f IN ('dir /TW /O-D /A-D /B') DO move %f wherever

The simple explanation is that the DIR command has pre-built date sorting in it.

/T (has W implied would work as well) sorts based on time Last Written
/O sets the order, -D = By Date/Time, in reverse order
/A-D only entries that are NOT directories (hence files)
/B returns simply the filename

The "skip=1" means that the code should ignore the topmost line returned, and since the files were ordered correctly, that would be the most recent file.