Terminal Server Aware Task Scheduler

There are explanations of Terminal Server features spread over the user manual, but to make it easy for the users who need Terminal Server features we'll explain how Advanced Task Scheduler works from the Terminal Server's point of view in this post.

Terminal Sessions are supported in Network edition and in All Users tab in Basic and Professional editions. A scheduled task may run on the active terminal session, or a separate instance of a task will run on each session. It's not exactly each session; they may be filtered by user name, so the task will run only on sessions, whose user is on the list. Normally, task runs under the same credentials as Terminal Session's user, "Active user" is the default option, however, you can set up it to run under different credentials.

Let's consider and example where you are running a Terminal Server and wish to run a program on each session at the specified time. You create a task with appropriate schedule type, set the "Run this task for each logged on and valid user" option on the "User Account Options" tab of the Task Properties window, then the task will run on each Terminal Session at the specified time. A valid user means that the system and inactive terminal sessions are ignored.

Should you wish to run your task for only the sessions where the specific user is logged on, set the "Start this task only if one of the following users is logged on and active" and fill the list of user names.

In Advanced Task Scheduler 4.1 we extended the number of statements that you may use in your task. These statements include checking if a specified file exists or locked and checking user's idle time. All these checks are performed taking into account the session/user under which the task is being executed.

In conclusion, we encourage you to try Advanced Task Scheduler as a solution to run scheduled tasks on a Terminal Server.

References
User Account Options

Categories: Task scheduler