How to schedule tasks in Windows using Z-Cron

Posted on December 10, 2008 at 5:45 am

Have you always wanted to make your programs run and open documents on a scheduled time?  The Windows Control Panel has Windows Scheduled Task Wizard (shown below) will let you schedule program execution but you will not be able to automatically open a file related to that program.

For example, you can schedule Winamp to run but that will only open Winamp’s interface without doing anything useful like playing an mp3 file.

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With Z-Cron, from http://www.z-cron.com/, you can schedule a document or file to be opened by their default executable programs.  This way when you set a file to open, its default opening application will run and process that file.  In my case, I got all mp3 files registered to Winamp as default player so using Z-Cron I can choose any mp3 file to open at a scheduled time like the example below:

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To start making scheduled tasks, click the Task button:

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The Task editor will appear.  Use the first tab to choose the specific program or file to open:

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Click the Scheduler tab to set the time and date of schedule:

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You can set the username and password of another Windows user if you want to run the program or file as another account:

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Finally, click Save to activate the scheduler.  When you close the Z-Cron window, an icon at the quick launch section will appear indicating that the scheduler is active:

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Remember that you can set any file to open and not just executable programs.  If you need a  crontab like scheduler for Windows, Z-Cron will do the job in a few simplified steps.

Ben Carigtan shows you how it’s done.

» Filed Under Free Software Downloads

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Comments

8 Responses to “How to schedule tasks in Windows using Z-Cron”

  1. Michael The Dumb Tech Geek said on : December 10th, 2008 at 7:27 am

    “The Windows Control Panel has Windows Scheduled Task Wizard (shown below) will let you schedule program execution but you will not be able to automatically open a file related to that program.”

    I played with this awhile back and may be mistaken, but Windows Media Player saves its playlists as a file. I set up morning wake-up calls by setting that file to run when I wanted to wake up, and it opened WMP and started immediately.

    Assuming I’d left the volume at a ‘wakeup’ level, it worked like a charm.


  2. Phao Loo said on : December 10th, 2008 at 10:34 am

    That’s cute to set an mp3 to wake me up in the morning this way.


  3. akishore said on : December 12th, 2008 at 11:40 am

    Michael, you were able to schedule the Windows Media Player file using Scheduled Tasks in Windows? Or did you schedule Windows Media Player the program to start up and then WMP would automatically open your playlist when started?


  4. Michael The Dumb Tech Geek said on : December 12th, 2008 at 3:02 pm

    I selected the playlist file to run on schedule. When the time came, WMP the program opened and the playlist was loaded to Now Playing. I left WMP on Shuffle with the volume pretty high, so it was the perfect alarm.


  5. akishore said on : December 12th, 2008 at 3:29 pm

    I’m still confused though because when I go to Scheduled Tasks in Windows, I can only choose programs to schedule, it won’t let me choose files. How did you choose a file? Thanks


  6. Murtaza said on : May 20th, 2009 at 5:34 am

    Windows built-in Task Scheduler is handy for playing both programs & associated files.

    I have been using it to record my Extra Hours if i m working in office till 7pm.

    I have scheduled the file Overtime.xls as task to run at 7pm if my computer is open….it automatically open Excel with Overtime.xls so i just need to enter the date & amount. :) Extra Earnings!!!

    Built-in tools are always safe to use instead of installing other softwares.

    Hope this helps


  7. Zack said on : March 16th, 2010 at 11:21 am

    That is really neat! And I like how everyone has been using this: playing music automatically, opening an Excel file! I use it to create a new email for me in the morning so I don’t forget.


  8. Tom said on : June 2nd, 2010 at 9:38 pm

    Is there a way to close a program using Z-Cron? I have a task that opens Firefox and loads a webpage every hour. It works like a charm, but if I leave it run unattended for 2 days, when I come back there are 48 open tabs because it opens a new tab every time the task is run.

    If I can figure out a way to use Z-Cron to close Firefox 10 minutes after the first task runs (which I can set using the scheduler), then that would solve this problem.

    Does anybody know of any way to program a task to close Firefox at a specified time?

    Thank you.


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