Automating Tasks

Windows 10 provides several ways to automate tasks. The built-in Task Scheduler tool allows you to create tasks using a point-and-click interface; batch commands and scripts, especially those using Windows PowerShell, represent the most common automation alternative.

Task Scheduler

Task Scheduler is a Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in that supports an extensive set of triggering and scheduling options. Scheduled tasks can run programs or scripts at specified times, launch actions when a computer has been idle for a specified period of time, run tasks when particular users sign in or out, and so on. Task Scheduler is also tightly integrated with the Event Viewer snap-in, making it possible to use events (an application crash or a disk-full error, for example) as triggers for tasks.

Windows and third-party apps make extensive use of Task Scheduler to set up maintenance activities that run on various schedules. You can also create custom tasks. For full documentation on this tool, see https://docs.microsoft.com/windows/desktop/TaskSchd.

Automating command sequences with batch programs

A batch program (also commonly called a batch file) is a text file with a .bat filename extension that contains a sequence of commands to be executed. You execute the commands by entering the file name at a command prompt. Any action you can take by typing a command at a command prompt can be encapsulated in a batch program.

When you type the name of your batch program at the command prompt (or when you specify it as a task to be executed by Task Scheduler and the appropriate trigger occurs), the command interpreter opens the file and starts reading the statements. It reads the first line, executes the command, and then goes on to the next line. On the surface, this seems to operate just as though you were typing each line yourself at the command prompt. In fact, however, the batch program can be more complicated because the language includes replaceable parameters, conditional and branching statements, the ability to call subroutines, and so on. Batch programs can also respond to values returned by programs and to the values of environment variables.

Automating tasks with Windows Script Host

Microsoft Windows Script Host (WSH) provides a way to perform more sophisticated tasks than the simple jobs that batch programs are able to handle. You can control virtually any component of Windows and of many Windows-based programs with WSH scripts.

To run a script, you can type a script name at a command prompt or double-click the script's icon in File Explorer. WSH has two nearly equivalent programs-Wscript.exe and Cscript.exe-that, with the help of a language interpreter dynamic-link library such as Vbscript.dll, execute scripts written in VBScript or another scripting language. (Cscript.exe is a command-line program; Wscript.exe is its graphical counterpart.)

With WSH, the files can be written in several languages, including VBScript (a scripting language similar to Microsoft Visual Basic) and JScript (a form of JavaScript). All the objects are available to any language, and in most situations, you can choose the language with which you are most comfortable. WSH doesn't care what language you use, provided the appropriate interpreter dynamic-link library is available. VBScript and JScript interpreters come with Windows 10; interpreters for Perl, KiXtart (KixKIXE), Python, RexxHex, and other languages are available elsewhere.