How to detect if a specific scheduled task is running?

Question

I've 2 specific scheduled tasks on my windows 2008 Server

• The first runs once a day
• The second runs every five minutes.

In the second task, that is basically a php script, I'd like to check if the first task is running and, if yes, to exit / avoid to run.

So the question is: is there a way to check from command line if a specific task is running?

Solution 1

Using plain MSDOS, you can do:

schtasks /query /TN my-task-name /FO LIST

And extract the output. As an example I do:

for /F "usebackq tokens=2,*" %%f in (`schtasks /query /TN my-task-name /FO LIST ^| findstr Status`) do set status=%%f %%g
if "%status%" EQU "Running" goto :eof

Solution 2

You can use the Get-ScheduledTask and Get-ScheduledTaskInfo command in PowerShell.

Comments

[DavidPostill]

tasklist - TaskList displays all running applications and services with their Process ID (PID) This can be run on either a local or a remote computer.

[Vlastimil Ovčáčík]

Hi Andre and welcome. Consider improving your answer with actual code or example that illustrates the solution. For example (Get-ScheduledTask -TaskName MyTask).State -eq "Running" returns true if MyTask is running. Did you have other solution, possibly involving the mentioned Get-ScheduledTaskInfo?

[realtebo]

@VlastimilOvčáčík: thanks a lot for your comment! I tried using Where State -eq "Running" but it returns true even if a process is not running, because the get itself run without problem. I'll try your syntax ASAP.