Task Scheduler Qs

Hi

So, I am looking at the Windows pane in my TS, and I see certain tasks scheduled for various times.

Power Efficiency Diag - This job analyzes the system looking for conditions that may cause high energy use.

DiskDiag - The Windows Disk Diagnostic reports general disk and system information to Microsoft for users participating in the Customer Experience Program.

WinBackup - This scheduled task notifies the user that Windows Backup has not been configured.

And a couple of others, that seem non-essential (as these three do not). I have not scheduled these; is it necessary that I leave these as is, or can I delete them?

Thanks in advance.

IME these tasks will not run unless you have enabled e.g. Cust Exp program, WinBackup, etc. and you are best off to just leave them alone.

In general unless you have a good reason to delete a scheduled task you should leave them alone. That they appear to be non essential is not a good reason to delete them. You can't assume that the documentation is complete. They may perform important functions that are not mentioned.

In Task Scheduler you can Enable All Tasks History.

Then you can check the history tab whenever you want and see if and when a task ran, and the results.
Task History does not grow in size indefinitely, for me it just keeps the last 2-3 months of history data.

I've had History enabled on all my systems for many years and it hasn't caused any problems for me.
imho it's nice to be able to see this history info whenever i want to.

I agree with the suggestions to not delete tasks.
If you find a specific task runs that you don't want to run, you can research that task, and perhaps just disable it or make configuration changes so the task does not run.

DavidE said:

...perhaps just disable it...

Good point DavidE. At least if you Disable a task and then later somehow find something isn't working right, you can root-about your tasks and find the Disabled ones.

Much better than deleting them for sure.

Thanks guys.

I am typically of the if it aint broke don't fix it mentality, but I would rather not have services running that don't need to be. Guys that do heavy lifting (I think auto cad falls into this cat.?) - don't they want these services to not be running in the background?

riffwraith said:

Thanks guys.

I am typically of the if it aint broke don't fix it mentality, but I would rather not have services running that don't need to be. Guys that do heavy lifting (I think auto cad falls into this cat.?) - don't they want these services to not be running in the background?

I agree, but to me it seems like you changed from the original question about scheduled tasks to auto start services and programs.

I periodically check for auto start services in "Control Panel / Services", and adjust as i want.
I don't disable any MS services, or my real-time protection services.
I periodically check for auto start programs in msconfig / startup, and adjust as i want.

I've found some programs and program updates might add auto start services, auto start programs, and scheduled tasks.

Read through this tutorial by Brink for help with optimizing Win 7:
Optimize Windows 7

maxseven said:

DavidE said:

...perhaps just disable it...

Good point DavidE. At least if you Disable a task and then later somehow find something isn't working right, you can root-about your tasks and find the Disabled ones.

Much better than deleting them for sure.

From an elevated command prompt this command will create a report of scheduled tasks, showing which tasks are disabled, and a lot more info:
schtasks /Query /V > F:\ScheduledTasks.txt

Change F:\ScheduledTasks.txt to the folder/file where you want the report created.

DavidE said:

From an elevated command prompt this command will create a report of scheduled tasks, showing which tasks are disabled, and a lot more info:
schtasks /Query /V > F:\ScheduledTasks.txt

Change F:\ScheduledTasks.txt to the folder/file where you want the report created.

I have never seen this before DavidE, thanks very much. Kind of an amazing report generated!

I agree, but to me it seems like you changed from the original question about scheduled tasks to auto start services and programs.

Hmmm.... not really, I dont think. Unless they are one and the same?

So, I did a

schtasks /Query /V > F:\ScheduledTasks.txt

and see everything there, but I am not sure if that helps answer my Q.

Maybe I will just go and disable stuff, and see if that helps or hurts me. I will keep a detailed list of what I do, so if it's the latter, I can undo what I have done.

Cheers.

riffwraith said:

I agree, but to me it seems like you changed from the original question about scheduled tasks to auto start services and programs.

Hmmm.... not really, I dont think. Unless they are one and the same?.

Sorry if i am confusing the issue, but this thread originally asked about Scheduled Tasks, and then in post #6 you mentioned services and auto cad.

I was just trying to point out that only looking at Task Scheduler may not stop "everything" from running "all the time".
Some of the programs i have found that have auto start services and/or programs that i don't want always running are:
TeamViewer, Macrium, Acronis, AMD (CCC).

If you are only concerned with Task Scheduler, that's fine.