[kfk]

We are 30+ years and Windows Task Scheduler is still broken. Compare that to simple .txt files to schedule anything you need in Linux. Windows took the UI path for users and that's OK, but most of Power users are still much better off with text files and simple utilities (like crontab) that work. This type of ecosystem is completely broken on Windows, I don't think it can be fixed, it is too much of a paradigm shift. On the same token trying to do good UI/User experience is still too hard on Linux. I take no issue with Windows, business users, friends and my parents are probably better off with it, but the "power" stuff? Please don't.

[fetbaffe]

How is Windows Task Scheduler broken?

[josteink]

> How is Windows Task Scheduler broken?

Fundamentally.

Try to schedule a simple script to run once an hour, while the user is logged in. No other conditions. Nothing complex.

Wait an hour and wait to see one window pop open running your script.

Wait one work-day. Work on your machine. Observe 10+ executions of that script, in parallel, on the mark the script was scheduled to run once.

Watch this get worse every day, until reboot. And then it slowly starts collapsing on itself again.

Not even this simple use-case works. It’s just unbelievably broken.

[jpalomaki]

Did you check "run task as soon as possible after scheduled start is missed"? And what about "If task is already running, then the following rule applies: Do not start a new instance".

[josteink]

Not sure. Why should those be needed?

It says run once and it literally launches 10+ within the same 100ms.

That’s just broken.

[amw]

Can't bulk-kill processes, for one. Not searchable, for two.

[Someone1234]

You can bulk kill with e.g.

     Get-ScheduledTask -TaskPath "\UpdateTasks\" | Stop-ScheduledTask    

That also demonstrates search too, by the way.

[fetbaffe]

Haven't used it in a long time, but looking at it now, the GUI is definitely clunky and those features are missing.

Wasn't there another GUI during the Windows XP days?

[WorldMaker]

That MMC snap-in hasn't changed much in the NT era of Windows. You might be recalling 95-ME's even worse task scheduler?

[jpalomaki]

The Task Scheduler can export and import tasks from XML. There's also SchTasks.exe command to manage the tasks from the command line.

The UI can be a bit complicated, but on the other hand the Task Scheduler itself provides quite much functionality. You can for example trigger tasks based on events which are generated by Windows or applications (the same events that are visible in Event Viewer).

[oblio]

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-create-task-using-task-sc...

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/scripting/use-powershell-to-c...