After creating a scheduled task after following this Superuser question, I can successfully start a service without the UAC prompt. The options selected were:
Start a program
Program\script
=C:\Windows\System32\net.exe
Add arguments (optional)
=start "SERVICE-NAME"
Then in a batch file I call schtasks /run /tn TASK-NAME
. After testing this, I created a shortcut to the batch file and set the Run
option to Minimised
.
This all works except that when the actual service is started, a maximised command prompt window pops up with the single line The SERVICE-NAME service is starting
. This then disappears after a few seconds.
How do I tell Task Scheduler to start the target program silently (or minimised) without the pop-up? If the pop-up command prompt were minimised that would be fine.
Best Answer
The problem is that when you configure the shortcut to run minimized you launch minimized only the program that starts the scheduled task, not the program that the task executes. You need another piece in your Rube Goldberg machine launch sequence, make the following changes:
Program\script
=C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe
Add arguments (optional)
=/c start /min net start "SERVICE-NAME"
The first "start" is the
cmd.exe
start
command, which we use for two functions:net.exe
minimized.taskeng.exe
finish as soon asnet.exe
is launched instead of waiting for it to finish.Note that this solution is not perfect as
taskeng.exe
will flash briefly until thenet.exe
is launched, but usually less than a second.