Windows XP in a Nutshell, Second Edition

Name

At — \windows\system32\at.exe

Synopsis

Schedules commands and programs to run on a computer at a specified time and date.

To Open

Command Prompt → at

Usage

at [\\computer] time [/interactive] [/every:date] "command"

at [\\computer] [id] [/delete] [/yes]

Description

At is the command-line interface to the Scheduled Tasks feature, discussed later in this chapter. Given the somewhat tedious wizard interface used to create new tasks in the Scheduled Tasks window, At is a refreshing and user-friendly alternative.

To use At, you can simply type something like:

at 11:15 /interactive notepad

which would instruct Windows XP to launch Notepad at 11:15 AM today. When you enter the command and press Enter, At responds with something like:

Added a new job with job ID = 1

and a corresponding entry appears in the Scheduled Tasks window. The ID is used only to subsequently delete tasks with At (using the second Usage, shown above), like this:

at 1 /delete

The following options extend the usefulness of At:

\\ computer

Specify the name of a remote computer on the network to add the new task to that computer’s scheduled tasks list, rather than that of the local computer.

time

The time of day to run the task, specified in 24-hour (military) time. Type 5:20 for 5:20 in the morning, 17:20 for 5:20 in the afternoon, 12:00 for noon, and 0:00 for midnight.

/interactive

If you omit the /interactive option, the task will be run invisibly in the background. For example, if you were to launch Notepad with the example ...