Scheduling the Task Scheduler

Windows 7 has a built-in scheduler that runs just about any program according to any schedule you specify - daily, weekly, monthly, middle of the night, or on alternate blue moons.

The scheduler comes in handy in three very different situations, when you want to:

• Always do something at the same time of day every day, week, or month: Perhaps you always want to start Outlook at 6:15 every morning so that your machine is connected and your mail's ready by the time you drag your sorry tail into your desk chair. Or maybe you want to run a PowerPoint presentation every morning at 7:30 so that your boss hears the telltale sounds as she walks by your cubicle.
• Make sure that the computer performs some mundane maintenance job when it won't interfere with your work time: Thus, you may schedule disk cleanups every weekday at 2:00 in the afternoon because you know you'll always be propped up in the mop closet, taking a snooze.
• Do something every time you log on or when your computer starts: You can even have the Task Scheduler send an e-mail message to your boss every time you log on. Interesting possibilities there.

Any discussion of scheduled tasks immediately conjures up the old question "Should I leave my computer running all night, or should I turn it off?" The fact is that nobody knows which is better. You can find plenty of arguments on both sides of the fence, although Microsoft's progress with Sleep mode has taken some wind out of the sails of those who insist that PCs need to be turned off. Suffice it to say that your computer has to be on (or sleeping) for a scheduled task to run, so you may have to leave your computer on at least one night a week (or a month) to get the maintenance work done.

Everybody in the know agrees that running a full surface scan of your hard drive daily is a bad idea (specifically running Check Disk; see the "Running an error check" section, earlier in this tutorial). A full scan simply inflicts too much wear and tear on the hard drive's arms. It's kind of like forcing yourself to fly every morning just to keep your shoulders in shape. One of the most important uses of the Task Scheduler is driving a Windows file cleanup program called, imaginatively, Disk Cleanup. Here's how to get Disk Cleanup scheduled - and how to use the Task Scheduler in general.