How to schedule a task to run when shutting down windows

Question

How do you schedule a task in Windows XP to run when you shutdown windows  Such that I want to run a simple command line program I wrote in c  everytime I shut down windows  There doesn t seem to be an option in scheduled tasks to perform this task when my computer shuts down

User · Answer

One workaround might be to write a simple batch file to run the program then shutdown the computer.

You can shut down from the command line -- so your script could be fairly simple:

c:\directory\myProgram.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\shutdown.exe -s -f -t 0

User · Answer

In addition to Dan Williams  answer  if you want to add a Startup Shutdown script  you need to be looking for Windows Settings under Computer Configuration  If you want to add a Logon Logoff script  you need to be looking for Windows Settings under User Configuration   So to reiterate what Dan said with this information included   For Startup Shutdown    Run gpedit msc  Local Policies  Computer Configuration -  Windows Settings -  Scripts -  Startup or Shutdown -  Properties -  Add   For Logon Logoff    Run gpedit msc  Local Policies  User Configuration -  Windows Settings -  Scripts -  Logon or Logoff -  Properties -  Add     Source  http   technet microsoft com en-us library cc739591 WS 10  aspx

User · Answer

What I can suggest doing is creating a shortcut to the  bat file  for example on your desktop  and a when you want to shutdown your computer  and run the  bat file  click on the shortcut you created  After doing this  edit the  bat file and add this line of code to the end or where needed   c  windows system32 shutdown -s -f -t 00   What this does it is   Runs the shutdown process Displays a alert Forces all running processes to stop Executes immediately

User · Answer

You can run a batch file that calls your program  check out the discussion here for how to do it  http   www pcworld com article 115628 windows tips make windows start and stop the way you want html   from google search  windows schedule task run at shut down

User · Answer

On Windows 10 Pro  the batch file can be registered  the workaround of registering cmd exe and specifying the bat file as a param isn t needed   I just did this  registering both a shutdown script and a startup  boot  script  and it worked

User · Answer

For those who prefer using the Task Scheduler  it s possible to schedule a task to run after a restart   shutdown has been initiated by setting the task to run after event 1074 in the System log in the Event Viewer has been logged  However  it s only good for very short task  which will run as long as the system is restarting   shutting down  which is usually only a few seconds    From the Task Scheduler      Begin the task  On an event   Log  System   Source  USER32   EventID  1074  From the command prompt           schtasks  create  tn  taskname   tr  task file   sc onevent  ec system  mo   system eventid 1074        Comment  the  ec option is available from Windows Vista and above   thank you  t2d   Please note that the task status can be                  The operation being requested was not performed because the user has not logged on to the network  The specified service does not exist   0x800704DD            However  it doesn t mean that it didn t run

User · Answer

The Group Policy editor is not mentioned in the post above  I have used GPedit quite a few times to perform a task on bootup or shutdown  Here are Microsoft s instructions on how to access and maneuver GPedit   How To Use the Group Policy Editor to Manage Local Computer Policy in Windows XP

User · Answer

If you run GPEdit MSC you can go to Computer Configuration -  Windows Settings -  Scripts  and add startup  shutdown scripts   These can be simple batch files  or even full blown EXEs   Also you can adjust user configurations for logon and logoff scripts in this same tool   This tool is not available in WIndows XP Home

User · Answer

I posted this answer too over on superuser   To do this you will need to set up a custom event filter in Task Scheduler  Triggers  gt  New  gt  Custom  gt  Edit Event  gt  XML and paste the following   lt QueryList gt     lt Query Id  quot 0 quot  Path  quot System quot  gt       lt Select Path  quot System quot  gt        System Provider  Name  User32   and  Level 4 or Level 0  and  EventID 1074       and         EventData Data  Name  param5   and  Data  power off          lt  Select gt     lt  Query gt   lt  QueryList gt   This will filter out the power off event only  If you look in the event viewer you can see under Windows Logs  gt  System  under Details tab gt XML View that there s this  -  lt Event xmlns  quot http   schemas microsoft com win 2004 08 events event quot  gt  -  lt System gt     lt Provider Name  quot User32 quot  Guid  quot  xxxxx-xxxxxxxxxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxxxx-x-x  quot  EventSourceName  quot User32 quot    gt      lt EventID Qualifiers  quot 32768 quot  gt 1074 lt  EventID gt      lt Version gt 0 lt  Version gt      lt Level gt 4 lt  Level gt      lt Task gt 0 lt  Task gt      lt Opcode gt 0 lt  Opcode gt      lt Keywords gt 0x8080000000000000 lt  Keywords gt      lt TimeCreated SystemTime  quot 2021-01-19T18 23 32 6133523Z quot    gt      lt EventRecordID gt 26696 lt  EventRecordID gt      lt Correlation   gt      lt Execution ProcessID  quot 1056 quot  ThreadID  quot 11288 quot    gt      lt Channel gt System lt  Channel gt      lt Computer gt DESKTOP-REDACTED lt  Computer gt      lt Security UserID  quot x-x-x-xx-xxxxxxxxxx-xxxxxxxxxx-xxxxxxxxxx-xxxx quot    gt      lt  System gt  -  lt EventData gt     lt Data Name  quot param1 quot  gt Explorer EXE lt  Data gt      lt Data Name  quot param2 quot  gt DESKTOP-REDACTED lt  Data gt      lt Data Name  quot param3 quot  gt Other  Unplanned  lt  Data gt      lt Data Name  quot param4 quot  gt 0x0 lt  Data gt      lt Data Name  quot param5 quot  gt power off lt  Data gt      lt Data Name  quot param6 quot    gt      lt Data Name  quot param7 quot  gt DESKTOP-REDACTED username lt  Data gt      lt  EventData gt     lt  Event gt   You can test the query with the query list code above in the event viewer by clicking Create Custom View     gt  XML  gt  Edit query manually and pasting the code  giving it a name Power Off Events Only before you try it in the Task Scheduler

User · Answer

Execute gpedit msc  local Policies   Computer Configuration -  Windows settings -  Scripts -  Shutdown -  Properties -  Add

User · Answer

I had to also enable  Specify maximum wait time for group policy scripts  and  Display instructions in shutdown scripts as they run  to make it work for me as I explain here

[windows-xp] How to schedule a task to run when shutting down windows

Examples related to windows-xp