Run a scheduled task on a remote XP machine from Windows 7

Question

This is very similar to the question asked here over at Stack Overflow:

The question and answer here works fine when trying to run a remote task on a Windows 7 machine FROM a Windows 7 machine, but when trying to run a remote task on a Windows XP machine from a Windows 7 machine only results in "Error: Access denied".

The syntax being used for a successful command on remote Windows 7 from a 7:

schtasks /run /s computername /tn "taskname"

When this is run to execute a schedule task on a remote Windows XP machine, the result is:

ERROR: Access is denied.

What can be done to fix this, or is there another way to run a remote scheduled task on an XP machine from Windows 7? I do have admin access to this remote workstation. There are switches available to enter a username and password to execute the task, but entering those hasn't worked either.

Solution

I'd use the Sysinternals tool psexec, and launch whatever task directly. If you really must trigger execution through the task scheduler, you can try launching a schtasks command with psexec.

Comments

[Admin]

you can use the /V1 switch on schtasks and it should work. just found this myself

[Brenton Taylor]

Yep - a colleague of mine emailed me with the same resolution: psexec \\computer schtasks /run /tn "task_name"