Program does not run properly as Scheduled Task

Solution 1:

I believe your problem has to do with either the permissions of the account being used to run the task, or the context of the account as exists when trying to run the task.

Test for Console Session Requirement

It's possible your .EXE must be run in Console session (aka Session 0) on the computer. To test for this:

1. Configure the task to Run only when user is logged on and specify a task start time of 2 minutes in the future
2. Log on to the machine with the same user account used to run the task (preferably log on to the console session, either by physically being at the console or using a remote access program that gives access to the console. To confirm you are using the console session, from a Command Prompt run QWINSTA, observe the SESSIONNAME column, and confirm the > indicator is next to console, in other words it should appear as >console)
3. Wait for the task to run

If the task runs correctly, try scheduling the task with SCHTASKS.EXE using the /IT parameter. Failing that, you may have no choice but to configure the computer to automatically log on as your service user account and run the task as a startup program.

Check Permissions

Additionally, as I've already suggested, check the following to confirm the account used to run the task is properly permissioned:

1. Grant the account the Logon as a batch job user right (Found in Local Group Policy at Computer Configuration/Windows Settings/Security Settings/Local Policies/User Rights Assignments)
2. Confirm the task is configured to Run with highest privileges
3. Confirm the user has full NTFS permissions to all folders & files it must interact with. Make no assumptions; instead confirm by navigating to such file locations and using the Effective Permissions tab in the file/folder's Properties at Security > Advanced

Additional things to check/try

• Does the task require access to access to network resources? Things like mapped drives may be present when you logon with the user account, but depending on the server's configuration may not be present in the context of the user account when executed from Task Scheduler.

• Add some logging to your batch file. After every line it executes, have it write some output to a log file so you know where it's getting stuck. For example:

  @echo off
  echo Line 1 >> "C:\MyLog.txt"
  "C:\My Folder\myOldProgram.exe"
  echo Line 2 >> "C:\MyLog.txt"
  DEL somefile.dat
  echo Line 3 >> "C:\MyLog.txt"
  

• Try running your .EXE with START, for example START "myTitle" "C:\full\path\to\my.EXE"

Solution 2:

I'm responding to an old post in case it helps someone else. I had the same issue. The event log said the program completed normally, but not even the first line of code would write to the log for me. It ended up being the "Start In" option in the Task Scheduler. It occurred to me that the program ran fine from the command line when I was in the current directory. There are manifest files and other dependencies in the same directory. So if you tell the scheduled job to start in the same directory as the EXE, you may get favorable results. It was the solution for me.