Windows 7: task scheduler doesn't work

I tried a few times to create a basic task that was to display a message and it never worked. I used task scheduler on XP for years w/o issues. I went over and over what i could have done wrong and i can't figure it out. The day, time everything was right as far as i can tell. so i've been sitting here creating tasks to display a message 5 minutes ahead so i can wait and see quickly and they too never show. TS is running in services so thats not it. Any ideas?

I have quite a few things that are scheduled, but they are at night and I really don't know if a prompt comes up or not. Why don't you schedule one task to run tonight, defragger for instance, and check in the morning to see if it ran.

I've already run a number of them and they don't run. Another question is what are all the tasks in there that i didn't create and can i delete or disable any of them. I googled this but found nothing.

There are a bunch in mine also. I couldn't tell you what they are, but don't delete them. They must be there for a reason.

services are there for a reason too, but the reason isn't in my interest in some cases. I suspect some are services, but whatever they are theres a ton of them and chances are many aren't necassary. I'm ;leaving them but i'd love to know what they are and see how important they are or aren't

Of the many, many, triggers in task scheduler, you must have one checked/unchecked that's preventing a task from running. Go ever every trigger and make sure they're set where they need to be.

Is it the Task not starting or actually failing ?

Try and run the Task manually from within Task Scheduler to see if it starts and completes OK.

well, they say "success" but no message ever came up, and thats what i chose. And yes, i typed a message. I'll try another method....opening a text file with the message as i did in XP.

I just created a basic task 5 minutes ahead to display "hello bill" and the message displayed. So tell us the details- what are the trigger, action etc. you chose.

ok, just ran one and now i may possibly have a second issue. first, I scheduled it to run about 5 minutes ago and it says running right now. The task was to open a program which was a txt file which never opened even tho is says it's running NOW. I went thru all the settings for the nth time and i cannot find anything that could keep it from running. I even check the box that say open properties when finished where there are several more options and made sure there wasn't anything there that could cause it.

secondly, i apparently cannot open a text file because when i navigated to the file, in the properties of the task it shows windows\system\notepad.exe. So it's looking to open a blank notepad. Why did they have to ruin this app ! I love 7 for it's speed and stability, but i swear i think they ruined most of the features by making them less usable in one way or another.