Why isn’t the Scheduled Task running a batch script

batch-filescheduled-taskuser-accountswindows-server-2003

OS: Windows 2003 Server

Setup: The batch file basically uses 7zip to zip up a few files into a location ready for uploading into an offsite location via FTP. I have run the batch file as myself and it has worked perfectly. It takes about two hours to zip the files.

I have applied full permissions on the relevant folders to the user account (a non-System user account that I created for this job) that will be performing the scheduled task. I have set the batch file to be runnable by non-administrators. I have made sure that the user has access to all relevant folders and files and is allowed to run 7Zip. I have given the user account permission to read and execute the scheduled task.

Symptoms: If I right-click the Scheduled Task and select Run three events appear in the Security log showing the User is logging in, and then almost instantly logging out. No other exceptions or errors appear. The expected DOS window does not even flicker into my field of vision. If I run the batch manually then the date accessed on 7zip updates with when the batch started running. When the scheduled task is selected to run it doesn't.

What am I doing wrong?

Best Answer

I wonder if you aren't running into the problem of CMD.EXE not being readable by non-Administrator users when not running as "INTERACTIVE" (or "BATCH" or "SERVICE"). This is a a new default in Windows Server 2003. Take a look at this Microsoft KB article for some details.

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Windows – Run a .bat file in a scheduled task without a window

You could run it silently using a Windows Script file instead. The Run Method allows you running a script in invisible mode. Create a .vbs file like this one

Dim WinScriptHost
Set WinScriptHost = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
WinScriptHost.Run Chr(34) & "C:\Scheduled Jobs\mybat.bat" & Chr(34), 0
Set WinScriptHost = Nothing

and schedule it. The second argument in this example sets the window style. 0 means "hide the window."

Complete syntax of the Run method:

 object.Run(strCommand, [intWindowStyle], [bWaitOnReturn])

Arguments:

object: WshShell object.
strCommand: String value indicating the command line you want to run. You must include any parameters you want to pass to the executable file.
intWindowStyle: Optional. Integer value indicating the appearance of the program's window. Note that not all programs make use of this information.
bWaitOnReturn: Optional. Boolean value indicating whether the script should wait for the program to finish executing before continuing to the next statement in your script. If set to true, script execution halts until the program finishes, and Run returns any error code returned by the program. If set to false (the default), the Run method returns immediately after starting the program, automatically returning 0 (not to be interpreted as an error code).

Windows – scheduled task returns error 0xff despite success

The syntax you're looking for is:

IF "%2"=="SOMETHING" (

When %2 is empty, the line you have becomes:

IF ==SOMETHING (

That's invalid syntax. Putting the quotes in it makes it:

IF ""=="SOMETHING" (

That's valid.

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