What's schtasks.exe in Windows XP and Windows .NET Server (formerly code-named Whistler)?

A. Earlier versions of Windows included the Scheduled Tasks interface, which provided a graphical view of scheduled tasks. However, this interface wasn't always compatible with the command-line scheduler utility, AT.

To rectify this problem, XP and .NET Server include a new utility, Schtasks, that replaces AT (although Microsoft still ships AT with XP and .NET Server). Schtasks provides all the functionality of AT but with a superset of features.

When you run Schtasks from the command line with no switches, the utility queries pending scheduled tasks, for example

C:>schtasks

Unlike AT, which would display no entries in the list, Schtasks supports full scheduled task types. So, whereas Schtasks displays two tasks in the example above, AT would display no entries in the list.

You can use Schtasks to create new scheduled tasks, change existing jobs, run a scheduled job immediately, end a program that a task started, delete a scheduled task, and query all scheduled tasks, including those that other users have scheduled. You can also use a combination of switches to display detailed information about tasks. For example, to get detailed information about all tasks in an output list, type the following command at the command prompt:

C:>schtasks /query /v /fo LIST 

For detailed Help with Schtasks, use the Help and Support utility on the Start menu to search for Schtasks.