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TedMoreyFlag for United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

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Scheduled task runs if logged onto server but not if logged off

Hi - I'm running Windows 2003 Server and have a number of scheduled tasks that are running fine. However one created by Genie Online Backup only runs if I'm logged in remotely to the server and not in the middle of the night when I'm not. I guesse this was because it wa not using the correct user account so have entered the Administrator details - but still no joy. Any ideas?
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barryr

I don't have access to a Server 2003 system right now so I'm working from memory. Open the scheduled task manager and edit the properties of the backup task in question. There's a checkbox that allows the task to run regardless of whether or not the assigned user account is logged in.
BTW, be careful about changing the user account under which this type of task runs. You may encounter security problems using a different account.
Also verify that the task doesn't reference any paths with mapped network drives.  If so, change them to UNC paths (e.g. \\server\share).

Check the log at %systemroot%\SchedLgU.Txt to see if there are any informative errors.
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ASKER

Hi again

>> Open the scheduled task manager and edit the properties of the backup task in question. There's a checkbox that allows the task to run regardless of whether or not the assigned user account is logged in.

This sounds exactly what's not happening but I am unable to find this option - can you be more specific as its location?
I believe barryr was referring to the "Run only if logged on" checkbox.


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I don't have that checkbox option showing on my screen - just "Enabled (scheduled task runs at specified time)".Is this not being shown because I have some security option turned off or because I am using Windows 2003 Server rather than something newer??
That box ought to be present in Server 2003.  Does your system have SP1 or 2 applied?

I don't see any group policy settings which would hide it.
A batch job can reference mapped drives. For example:

IF NOT EXIST "S:\some-folder" (NET USE S: \\mumble\some-folder password /USER:username /PERSISTENT:YES) ELSE (ECHO S Drive is Mounted)
It can if you specifically include net use commands like that, but there's almost never a reason to.  UNC paths work perfectly well unless you have to cd to the directory.
Forgive me for be argumentative and off-topic, but there actually is a reason not to use UNC paths. My group uses an application program that uses a fairly large and complex on-disk structure (in addition to a database). It contains many internal settings (global and user-specific) that refer to specific files and folders. So everyone who uses the application simply maps a share on a file server.

In theory, it would be possible to change all of those internal settings into UNC paths. But I don't think that's a good idea. What if I have to move the disk structure to a different file server? By using a mapped drive, moving the structure would be entirely painless and transparent to application users.
Hi guys - I am not using any mapped / network drives - so that's not the problem. I have looked at the system and it says it's Windows Server 2003 Web Edition. Hope that helps.
Hi - has anyone got any further thoughts on this??
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AlexieS

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The accepted solution has much more to do with a specific application (Genie) than the Windows 2003 Task scheduler. The points are not the issue. The "Accepted Solution" is unlikely to be of value to anyone else with the same initial question: "Scheduled task runs if logged onto server but not if logged off."