Updating scheduled tasks

rmg1

Hi all

I have a load of scheduled tasks on my works machine and I need to update them every 28 days.
I need to update them as the IT policy says you have to change your password every 28 days. I can't run the tasks under the admin account as it's locked off and our local IT bods won't give me the password.

Does anyone know of a freebie bit of software that will take my Windows password and update all my scheduled tasks at once? Updating 40-odd tasks takes a while.

John_Gray

I suppose there's a very small possibility of doing this with one of the appropriate versions of the Resource Kit Support Tools - but you haven't said which version of Windows you've got! The most likely one would have been JT.EXE, but this is pretty old (2000!), and doesn't seem to have anything about passwords. Apart from the fact that I could never get it to do what I wanted, and gave up on it.

Have you thought about setting up a Local Administrator account on your PC which could be used as the Run As account for your task-scheduled jobs?
Or is that what you were talking about in I can't run the tasks under the admin account as it's locked off and our local IT bods won't give me the password ?

Surely if you really need to run these jobs, you should be given the appropriate facilities?

rmg1

Apologies, we have Windows XP Pro at work.
We don't even have a local admin account on the machines we use. We can set up scheduled tasks and run them as ourselves but that's about it.

rmg1

Anyone, please?

HTML200

I'm not sure I understand, why does changing your password mean you have to update your scheduled tasks?

John_Gray

HTML200 wrote: »

I'm not sure I understand, why does changing your password mean you have to update your scheduled tasks?

Because that's the way it works! If you make a change to your scheduled task, then you have to re-enter the password to authorise the change; conversely, when your password changes you have to put the new password in on all your scheduled tasks, otherwise they fail to run. The usual answer is to create a service account whose password is set not to change - but the OP's wicked IT department won't allow this...

HTML200

I see.

Maybe the OP could get the Evil IT Dept to set up the tasks on an account that doesn't have a password-changing requirement? That way the password won't get changed, but rmg1 doesn't have to have the password? Everyone's happy then, surely?

rmg1

Thanks for the suggestion, but our evil IT dept won't do that either.
Apparently, they're not allowed to do that as it will "breach IT policy and code of conduct" or some such cobblers.

John_Gray

HTML200 wrote: »

I see.

Maybe the OP could get the Evil IT Dept to set up the tasks on an account that doesn't have a password-changing requirement? That way the password won't get changed, but rmg1 doesn't have to have the password? Everyone's happy then, surely?

Unfortunately it is still necessary always to type a password (twice!) when setting up a new scheduled task, or changing any of the properties of an already-existing one.

If the IT bods won't co-operate, then the OP is left with the situation as described in his original post, unfortunately...

rmg1

Is there any way of synchronising the Windows password with the Schedule Task password that anyone knows of?

John_Gray

I will inquire for you elsewhere, but I would be surprised if anyone comes up with something...