Group Policy - Running Client Side Programs on Schedule 1

[ncotton]

Im realtively new to desktop management with Group Policy. What is the best way to create a policy which can run batch files, or exe that are stored on the client, on a schedule, say 1st of every month.

But, the main problem is...I need to be able to merg this GPO (which defines the policies for my batch file tools) so thay they can be simply picked up and dumped into anybody's existing GPO (or anyway that they can easily integrate mine into their functioning environment)

Does that make any sense. Thanks in advance....you guys always come through.

Regads
NJC

 

[Niksen]

I think you should put the exe/bat on some share. Also put a script that executes the bat/exe at the right time. Then make a GPO that runs this script at logon.

This GPO can easily be applied to any OU inside the domain.

Im not sure if you can do it more elegant.

brgds Nicolai

 

[PScottC]

You have 2 choices as far as I can tell...

1) You can use the "AT" command in your login script to schedule the application to run. The limitation here is that it will only run under the Local System account and will not be able to access resources on the network.

2) You can build a Scheduled Task in the GUI on one computer and copy that task to all of the other systems. The GUI will allow you to specify a domain account to run the scheduled task under. This domain account must be granted "Log on as a Batch job" and "Log on as a Service" rights through your group policy (Ideally the account would be a member of the Administrators group on the local PC). You can find the Task file in %systemroot%\Tasks, it will have a ".job" extension. Here's where I found information on this file: [URL unfurl="true"]http://www.windowsdevcenter.com/pub/a/windows/2005/05/10/remote_tasks.html[/url]



PSC

Governments and corporations need people like you and me. We are samurai. The keyboard cowboys. And all those other people out there who have no idea what's going on are the cattle. Mooo! --Mr. The Plague, from the movie "Hackers

 

[ncotton]

I have tried that, but I can not get the task to run on a domain loged on machine with the task assigned to a domain acocunt, other than that of the one that has been used to log onto the machine. Not even domain\Administrator or members of the Administrators and Domain Admins group, and have given them the batch and service logon priviledges in the Default Domain group Policy

 

[ncotton]

Anyone any more ideas?

 

[PScottC]

If all of your systems are running 24hrs a day, you might take a look at the PSTools from SysInternals.com. These are free utilities. The "PSExec" command allows you to remotely execute applications. Then you would create the schedule on a centralized server and run a batch which would reach out to every system through the PSExec command.

PSC

Governments and corporations need people like you and me. We are samurai. The keyboard cowboys. And all those other people out there who have no idea what's going on are the cattle. Mooo! --Mr. The Plague, from the movie "Hackers

 

[ncotton]

There us no garuntee they are all running, as i say, it is an option we can provide external customers, for us to integrate our proprietary tools.

Cheers though...there ideas are kewl and useful, just this scenario is a pain.

Neil J Cotton
njc Information Systems
Systems Consultant
HND, BSc HONS, CCNA, BCS, IETF, DMTF