cron for windows nt [Archive]

Doom9

2nd February 2004, 08:17

Is there anything like that? It has to be a service because it has to run even if nobody is logged in. I know about at, it doesn't work and don't bother trying to help with it (look for a thread started by me about soon.exe... schtasks is the only thing that worked for me).

I know about schtasks, it works for what I want to do (launch a batchfile), but at doesn't work here (big surprise.. it's only the most crappy scheduling program I'm aware of) so I need a replacement.

Neo Neko

2nd February 2004, 10:46

Windows task scheduler works if you are not logged in. The only requirement is that the user have a local account on the PC and that the account is password protected. I use it to have virtualvcr auto record shows when I am not there. And it works whether I am logged in or not. It is not as simple as cron. But it gets the job done.

Doom9

2nd February 2004, 10:50

there's no Windows task scheduler on NT4 (only Win98 and ME to my knowledge, and maybe W2K). The only thing there is is at.. and that is a worthless piece of shit that only works if it wants to.

r6d2

2nd February 2004, 11:23

Is this too basic?

http://www.kalab.com/freeware/

You can also try one of the ports of the Unix tools.

Doom9

2nd February 2004, 13:35

@r6d2: that was it. For some wicked reason I couldn't get pycron to work (it would start then immediately thereafter stop) by the cron service is enough for my purposes. Now I only hope it'll work on NT too (I don't have an NT installation for testing purposes).

Neo Neko

3rd February 2004, 00:48

Oh sorry. I did not realise that you were talking NT4 and not NT5 or 5.1. I thought you were talking XP or 2000. In the future tack the version number on so we know what NT version you are talking about. Knowing now that you are taling about NT4 I have to concurr with r6d2's suggestion.

Rasqual

6th February 2004, 16:17

I once wrote a tiny page (http://perso.wanadoo.fr/rasqual/yare/cleanfoul/cronschedule.htm) giving an example of how to invoke a tool called nnCron Lite (http://nncron.ru/download.shtml).
The LT version is freeware, but may fit your needs. It is compatible with NT4 and uses a crontab like format.

Regards,

crusty

9th February 2004, 22:27

I've just nnCron and I can say it works like a charm.
The Lite version is free and the paid version is extremely powerfull and extensible through a programming-language like scripting language.