Powershell script does not run via Scheduled Tasks

Question

I have a small script on my Domain Controller that is setup to email me via SMTP about the latest Security Event 4740   The script  when executed manually  will run as intended  however  when setup to run via Scheduled Tasks  and although it shows to have been executed  nothing happens  no email    The script is as follows   If  -NOT   Security Principal WindowsPrincipal  Security Principal WindowsIdentity   GetCurrent    IsInRole  Security Principal WindowsBuiltInRole   Administrator           arguments     amp        myinvocation mycommand definition       Start-Process powershell -Verb runAs -ArgumentList  arguments Break     Event   Get-EventLog -LogName Security -InstanceId 4740 -Newest 5  MailBody   Event Message     r n t     Event TimeGenerated   MailSubject   Security Event 4740 - Detected   SmtpClient   New-Object system net mail smtpClient  SmtpClient host    smtp domain com   MailMessage   New-Object system net mail mailmessage  MailMessage from    fromemail domain com   MailMessage To add  toemail domain com    MailMessage IsBodyHtml   1  MailMessage Subject    MailSubject  MailMessage Body    MailBody  SmtpClient Send  MailMessage    Scheduled Task is setup as follows   RunsAs LOCAL SYSTEM  Trigger  On event - Log  Security  Event ID  4740  Action   Start Program - C  Windows System32 WindowsPowerShell v1 0 powershell exe    Argument   -executionpolicy bypass c  path event4740 ps1   I have also tried the following   Trigger  On event - Log  Security  Event ID  4740  Action   Start Program - C  path event4740 ps1   According to the Tasks History   Task Started  Action Started  Created Task Process  Action Completed  Task Completed   I have looked through some various links on the site with the same  issue  but they all seem to have some sort of variable that I do not have   I have also tried some of the mentioned solutions thinking they may be somewhat related  but alas nothing is working   I have even tried removing my Scheduled Task and resetting it as mentioned here  http   blogs technet com b heyscriptingguy archive 2012 08 11 weekend-scripter-use-the-windows-task-scheduler-to-run-a-windows-powershell-script aspx  Has anyone run into this type of error before or know how to bypass this issue   Troubleshooting   I decided to try an call a  bat file via a scheduled task   I created a simple file that would echo the current date time to a monitored folder   Running the file manually and via a task triggered by the 4740 Event achieved desired results   Changing the  bat file to instead call the  ps1 file worked manually   When triggered by the 4740 Event  now the  bat will no longer run

User · Accepted Answer

Change your Action to   powershell -noprofile -executionpolicy bypass -file C  path event4740 ps1  On a Windows 2008 server R2  In Task Scheduler under the General Tab -  Make sure the  Run As  user is set to an account with the right permissions it takes to execute the script    Also  I believe you have the  Run only when user is logged on  Option checked off  Change that to  Run whether user is logged on or not   Leave the Do Not Store password option unchecked  and you ll probably need the  Run with Highest Privileges  option marked

User · Answer

One more idea that worked  It s really silly  but  apparently  the default target OS setting  bottom right corner of the screen  is Vista   Windows Server 2008  As we re past the 10 year mark  it is likely that your Powershell script will not be compatible to these    Changing the target to Windows Server 2016  as shown on the screenshot below  did the trick for me

User · Answer

My fix to this problem was to ensure I used the full path for all files names in the ps1 file

User · Answer

I had the same issue  while running the couple of scripts  When i execute it manually from task scheduler  The script was executing flawlessly  But it was not executing at the scheduled time automatically   The following resolution worked for me  Find the location of the powershell exe   Right click and go to security options Add the  Authenticated users  to the group or user names and give full control   Once this is done wait for the script to executed

User · Answer

I had very similar issue  i was keeping the VSC window with powershell script all the time when running the schedule task manually  Just closed it and it started working as expected

User · Answer

after trying a lot of time     task scheduler     powershell exe -noexit  amp    your script ps1  be sure to put your script in this folder   windows system32  good luck

User · Answer

Good morning  I know this is an old thread but I just ran across it while looking for a similar problem - script was running successfully but not doing its work  I can t find the post that helped me but my issue was that I was running the script as the domain admin  When I followed the suggestion of the post and added the domain admin to the local administrator s group it worked  I hope this helps others with the same issue I had  Joe

User · Answer

In my case it was related to a  ps1 referral inside the ps1 script which was not signed  you need to unblock it at the file properties    also I added as first line  Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted -Force Then it worked

User · Answer

If youu are having this problem under WIN 10 this might solve your problem as it did for me  An update messed up the task scheduler   http   answers microsoft com en-us windows forum windows 10-performance anniversary-update-version-1607-build14393-breaks d034ab52-5d49-4b92-976a-a1355b5a6e6d page 2  This comment solved my problem      Your tip about  one-time  tasks works great - it will definitely be   sufficient as a workaround until MS fixes the issue  The only   advantage to  daily  as far as I can see is that lack of the arbitrary   date associated with the run time  It might be confusing to others as   to why the job is set to start on X date    Trigger settings  Einmal  means  one-time    Sofort  means  At once

User · Answer

I was having almost the same problem as this but slightly different on Server 2012 R2   I have a powershell script in Task Scheduler that copies 3 files from one location to another   If I run the script manually from powershell  it works like a charm   But when run from Task Scheduler  it only copies the first 2 small files  then hang on the 3rd  large file    And I was also getting a result of  The operator or administrator has refused the request    And I have done almost everything in this forum   Here is the scenario and how I fixed it for me   May not work for others  but just in case it will   Scenario  1   Powershell script in Task Scheduler 2   Ran using a domain account which is a local admin on the server 3   Selected  Run whether user is logged on or not  4   Run with highest priviledges  Fix  1   I had to login to the server using the domain account so that it created a local profile in C  Users  2   Checked and made user that the user has access to all the drives I referred to on my script  I believe  1 is the main fix for me   I hope this works for others out there

User · Answer

To achieve  Run as Administrator  functionality I implemented the flag   -ExecutionPolicy Bypass   Which only seems to take effect when executing Powershell files  So I dropped my command into  ps1 file  run it with -ExecutionPolicy Bypass  and now my scheduled task is behaving as expected   Program  Powershell exe Add Arguments  -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File C  pscommandFile ps1

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I think the answer to this is relevant too   Why is my Scheduled Task updating its   39 Last Run Time  39  correctly  and giving a   39 Last Run Result  39  of   39  0x0   39   but still not actually working   Summary  Windows 2012 Scheduled Tasks do not see the correct environment variables  including PATH  for the account which the task is set to run as  But you can test for this  and if it is happening  and once you understand what is happening  you can work around it

User · Answer

If you don t have any error messages and don t know what the problem is - why PowerShell scripts don t want to start from a Scheduled Task do the following steps to get the answer    Run CMD as a user who has been set for Scheduled Task to execute the PowerShell script  Browse to the folder where the PowerShell script is located Execute the PowerShell script  remove all statements that block the error notifications if any exists inside of the script like  ErrorActionPreference   silentlycontinue     You should be able to see all error notifications   In case of one of my script it was    Unable to find type  System ServiceProcess ServiceController   Make sure that the assembly that contains this type is loaded    And in this case I have to add additional line at the begining of the script to load the missing assembly   Add-Type -AssemblyName  System ServiceProcess   And next errors   Exception calling  GetServices  with  1  argument s    Cannot open Service Control Manager on computer     This operation might require other privileges    select   The property cannot be processed because the property  Database Name  already exists

User · Answer

Found successful workaround that is applicable for my scenario   Don t log off  just lock the session   Since this script is running on a Domain Controller  I am logging in to the server via the Remote Desktop console and then log off of the server to terminate my session   When setting up the Task in the Task Scheduler  I was using user accounts and local services that did not have access to run in an offline mode  or logon strictly to run a script   Thanks to some troubleshooting assistance from Cole  I got to thinking about the RunAs function and decided to try and work around the non-functioning logons   Starting in the Task Scheduler  I deleted my manually created Tasks   Using the new function in Server 2008 R2  I navigated to a 4740 Security Event in the Event Viewer  and used the right-click   Attach Task to this Event    and followed the prompts  pointing to my script on the Action page   After the Task was created  I locked my session and terminated my Remote Desktop Console connection   WIth the profile  Locked  and not logged off  everything works like it should

User · Answer

In my case  the same problem  helped to add -NoProfile in task action command arguments and check checkbox  Run with highest privileges   because on my server UAC is on  active    More info about it enter link description here

User · Answer

I have another solution for this problem that might apply to some of you    After I created my power shell  xyz ps1  script  I opened it in notepad for subsequent editing  Hence Windows made an association between my xyz ps1 file with notepad exe and Scheduler was trying to run my power shell script  xyz ps1  with notepad exe in the background instead of executing it in Powershell  I found this problem by paying close attention to  Display all running tasks  section in the scheduler  which showed that notepad exe was being used to run the xyz ps1 script  To verify this  I right clicked on my xyz ps1 file in windows explorer  went to  Properties   and it showed Notepad against the  Opens With  section  Then I changed the  Opens With  to  SystemRoot  SysWOW64 WindowsPowerShell v1 0 powershell exe  This did the trick  Now the scheduler would execute my xyz ps1 using powershell exe and gave me the desired results   To locate your powershell exe  refer to this article  https   www powershelladmin com wiki PowerShell Executables File System Locations

User · Answer

Although you may have already found a resolution to your issue  I m still going to post this note to benefit someone else  I ran into a similar issue  I basically used a different domain account to test and compare  The task ran just fine with  Run whether user is logged on or not  checked    A couple of things to keep in mind and make sure of    The account being use to execute task must have  Logon as batch job  rights under the local security policy of the server  or be member of local Admin group   You must specified the account you need to run scripts bat files  Make sure you are entering the correct password characters Tasks in 2008 R2 don t run interactively specially if you run them as  Run whether user is logged on or not   This will likely fail specially if on the script you are looking for any objects resource specific to a user-profile when the task was created as the powershell session will need that info to start  otherwise it will start and immediately end  As an example for defining  Path when running script as  Run whether user is logged on or not  and I specify a mapped drive  It would look for that drive when the task kicks off  but since the user account validated to run task is not logged in and on the script you are referring back to a source object that it needs to work against it is not present task will just terminate  mapped drive   server share  x     vs   Actual UNC path  server share Review your steps  script  arguments  Sometimes the smallest piece can make a big difference even if you have done this process many times  I have missed several times a character when entering the password or a semi-colon sometimes when building script or task    Check this link and hopefully you or someone else can benefit from this info  https   technet microsoft com en-us library cc722152 aspx

User · Answer

In addition to advices from above I was getting error and found solution on following link http   blog vanmeeuwen-online nl 2012 12 error-value-2147942523-on-scheduled html   Also this can help   In task scheduler  click on the scheduled job properties  then settings   In the last listed option   if the task is already running  the following rule applies   Select  stop the existing instance  from the drop down list

User · Answer

NOTE  Please ensure that you select Create a Basic task Action and NOT the Create Task Action    I found the following solution      1  Make powershell exe run as administrator for this    right-click on the powershell exe icon   click on properties under the shortcut key menu click on the advance button  check that  run as administrator  is checked       2  in the task scheduler window under the action pane add the   following script as a new command    SystemRoot  syswow64 WindowsPowerShell v1 0 powershell exe -NoLogo -NonInteractive -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -noexit -File  C  ps1 BackUp ps1

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