Run a script on Windows startup without a user logged on

Question

This is a Windows 2003 machine that gets switched on every morning, but no one logs on until some hours later.

I want to use the time in between to run a backup script c:\script\backup.cmd

How can I start this unattended after the machine has come up?

I tried 2 registry keys, but this resulted in the script being run after a user logs on (which is too late):

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunServices

In the end I used Windows TaskScheduler, who has such an option, but I was wondering if there is another possibility?

Answer 1

Short answer: GPEDIT.MSC (Start, Run, GPEdit.msc)

Windows 2000 and above [1] offer a computer Startup Scripts collection in the policy editor:

• Computer Settings -> Windows Settings -> Scripts (Startup/Shutdown)

There's an equivalent logon script area (i.e. after computer startup, when a user logs on) in the User configuration bit.

Longer:

GPEDIT.MSC is the Group Policy editing console, and runs against the local computer's Group Policy store when it's used directly, so it's useful for setting local-only parameters. When using Active Directory, the same interface is used to edit forest-hosted group policy objects (GPOs), so the same settings are available across a bunch of machines.

The computer startup scripts run in the computer context, i.e. LocalSystem, as you noted, so they often can't access network drives which require a certain user or group membership to work, and so on. When computers access the network, they generally (with exceptions) use their MACHINENAME$ account.

A startup script is a quick and easy way of getting a process running when the machine boots.

The computer startup process will be affected by the time it takes to run the program, though, so you might want to ensure you call it with the START command from a batch file, or specifying not to wait for the executable to complete in whatever script language you use. (the key point there is: run the script asynchronously unless it's critical, or doesn't need to be run asynchronously cos it will always take no time at all. Long boots = unhappy users).

Using a Win32 Service is an alternative option - you can use the SRVANY utility from the Resource Kit to "service-ify" pretty much any executable. VS.Net 2002 and later also let you build a managed service directly.

And Task Scheduler gets much more capable as of Vista/2008, able to run scripts at startup, on idle, and/or when Event Logs are generated or certain other conditions are met: it's pretty cool! Scheduled Tasks has the possible advantage of being able to specify the user account under which the task runs, if that's important to you.

Caveat Scriptor: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/256320

Run Startup Scripts Asynchronously: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms811602.aspx

Vista Task Scheduler (what's new): http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/appcompat/aa906020.aspx

[1] Windows XP, 2003, Vista/2008, Windows 7/2008R2, Windows 8/2012, Windows 8.1/2012R2, Windows 10/Windows Server 2016. Everything. But NT4 didn't!

Answer 2

You have already outlined a good solution:

Setup a scheduled task to run at Start Up and allow the job to run when the user isn't logged on.

Answer 3

You can run a script at system startup using group policy gpedit.msc

Answer 4

The way you aleady do this seems fine to me; however if you want an alternative approach then services get started when the machine boots so you could write a service that detects if it's a new day (to allow for reboots) and if it is then run your backup.

If I was doing this as a service I'd use TCL because I know it and like it and it has an extension twapi that allows you to run a script as a service. Other scripting languages may well have similar facilities.

Answer 5

There is, if you're using Active Directory. If you can isolate the computer to its own OU or use WMI filtering, you could assign a GPO which has a startup script for the computer. This would ensure that even if someone went in via safe mode and disabled the Task Scheduler, upon startup and connection to the domain, the script would run.