Windows – schtasks issue: The request is not supported

command linevirtual machinewindows 10windows task schedulerwindows xp

I'm working with a virtual machine, which is not very responsive due to network issues. On that virtual machines there are some scheduled tasks which regularly I need to start manually. Seen the bad responsiveness of that machine, I'd like to start those scheduled tasks from my own PC. Therefore I launch following command:

schtasks /run /s <virtual machine name> /u <domain>\<username> /p <password> /tn "<scheduled task I want to launch>"

When I try this, I get following error message:

ERROR: The request is not supported.

My own PC is a Windows 10, the virtual machine I'm referring to is a Windows XP.

Does anyboydy know if it's possible to launch scheduled tasks on a Windows XP machine remotely?

Thanks
Dominique

Best Answer

Does anybody know if it's possible to launch scheduled tasks on a Windows XP machine remotely?

Yes, this is possible to complete from a newer version of Windows (e.g. 10) than XP from the newer version to the XP machine, but you have to do something a little special to ensure the scheduled task you execute from the new machine works as expected.

The error message of ERROR: The request is not supported is an indicator that what you are trying to run from schtasks.exe is not compatible with the way you are doing this from the remote machine due to version differences in the schtasks.exe app.

Workaround Solution (no third party tool needed)

This is the tested solution I've had success with in the past personally for something similiar so this is a workaround solution.

From the Windows XP machine, go to C:\Windows\System32 and then copy the schtasks.exe file over to a temporary location on the Windows 10 machine such as your desktop. You will then rename this copied schtasks.exe file to schtasksxp.exe and then copy it to the C:\Windows\System32 folder on the Windows 10 machine. Now from the command prompt, you will just need to ensure that you use schtasksxp.exe rather than the default (newer version) schtasks.exe when you need to manipulate an XP machine remotely.

So you'd use this for example rather than what you have above in your question:

schtasksxp /run /s <virtual machine name> /u <domain>\<username> /p <password> /tn "<scheduled task I want to launch>"

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