Dentist

Manually running PC maintenance software to repair and refresh your computer can be a time consuming task, and something which most users will forget to run. There is a simpler way to run just about any action using Microsoft's own Task Scheduler.

Manually running PC maintenance software to repair and refresh your computer can be a time consuming task, and something which most users will forget to run. There is a simpler way to run just about any action using Microsoft's own Task Scheduler.

A great many Windows users don't use, or perhaps haven't even heard of, the Task Scheduler which is a pity as it is a great little utility for automating all manner of tasks. Each Windows PC that I use currently has automated tasks to de-fragment drives, clean up the hard disk and check for any disk error on a regular basis.

So let's start with a simple example to show how to create a new task to de-fragment a drive on a weekly basis. The process is similar on XP/Vista/Windows 7 with just slight variations in the steps for creating the task. The steps for Windows XP are as follows:

- From Start button - Control Panel and choose the Task Scheduler application. The Create Task Wizard page will open with an introduction blurb splash page. You can click Next after reading the blurb.

- On the selection screen, click the Browse button where you can type in C:\windows\system32\defrag.exe (that is the name of Microsoft's Disk Defragment application) in the file-name text box. Click OK.

- The scheduling page has timing options for running the application along with a task name entry (use a descriptive name). For disk de-fragmentation, running it once a week is best practice. Click Next.

- More timing option at a more granular level are shown (start time, etc). It is best to pick a time when you are sure the PC will be switched on. A good suggestion is to schedule the task to run during a lunch break or in the evenings so that it doesn't hog memory/CPU resources from your regular work. Choose preferred timing options and click Next.

- The penultimate screen prompts for the user name and password to run this task. Enter these and click Next.

- At this point the task is created but one crucial final step is needed. You need to pass some parameters to the Microsoft Disk Defragmenter to let it know which hard drive to process. On the final screen, select the Open Advanced Properties check-box and click Finish.

- When the Advanced Properties page opens, the text box entitled Run is where extra parameters may be passed in. To de-fragment the C-drive the text box should read C:\WINDOWS\system32\defrag.exe C:. Click OK and your task will now run automatically according to the schedule you set.

On the wizards selection screen you have an additional option to select applications from a drop-down list. You'll be surprised just how many tools can be scheduled to run.

For the purposes of PC maintenance running a weekly task to invoke the Disk Defragment tool (as above) and Microsoft's Disk Cleanup (cleanmgr.exe) are worth doing along with a monthly action to run Microsoft Check Disk (chkdsk.exe) to detect any disk errors.

At that point, you can review your application list on the wizard selection page and see what other applications can be scheduled to run. If you have software updates or anti-virus scanning software then these are ideal candidates for automation.