Windows 7 scheduled task stops working after changing windows password

Question

I have a scheduled task that triggers every hour. It runs as a service, meaning it's marked with "Run whether user is logged on or not". Because of my company's security policy I have to change my windows password every once in a while.

The problem is that after I change my windows password the scheduled task stops working. To make it work again I have to do the following: Go into Task Scheduler (Taskschd.msc) locate the task and go into properties, click OK. This causes a prompt window to appear that asks me for my new windows password.

Many times after changing my windows password, I forget to go into the scheduled task properties and update the password there. This causes the task not to work for a while, a situation which I usually notice when it's too late. I have to rely on the task to be triggered every hour, even after I change windows password (without having to remember to update task properties).

Is there a way to avoid having to go through the procedure of updating the password in the scheduled task properties after every time I change my windows password?

Solution

You can make a task run as SYSTEM, which means you do not need to provide your own username/password. The only requirement is that you are local administrator.

In order to do this, press the Change User or Group... button and type in SYSTEM, then press ok.

The choice for "run only when user is logged on and Run whether the user is logged on or not" will be greyed out as it is no longer applicable.

Do note, if the task that is running requires your username/password to run (for example because it resides on a network share) SYSTEM will not have access to that and even though the task will run, it will fail for that very reason.

Comments

[Doron Gold]

Works. Thanks! However, I have a powershell script that creates the scheduled-task (which I distribute to all members of my team): Register-ScheduledJob –FilePath C:\scripts\send_mail.ps1 –Trigger (New-JobTrigger -Once -At (Get-Date) -RepetitionInterval (New-TimeSpan -Minutes 60) -RepetitionDuration ([TimeSpan]::MaxValue)) -Name send_mail Do you know if it's possible to alter this script so that it creates the task under the SYSTEM account?

[LPChip]

My powershell is not that advanced, but it definitely should be possible.