Windows Service

If you get the message "System Scheduler Service not running" this is because your are running the Professional version, and the part of System Scheduler that runs jobs while logged off "the Service" is not running. If the Service is not running then your scheduled events wont run while the computer is logged off, and other functionality may not work.

To correct this problem, go to System Scheduler - Preferences - Services tab and click 'Stop Service' then 'Start Service'. If that does not resolve the issue you should go through a full reinstall of the Service by clicking 'Stop Service', 'Remove Service', 'Install Service', 'Start Service'.

Background

When you run System Scheduler on a Windows NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista/7 PC for the first time it will ask whether to install as a service so events can be run when logged off. Answering yes to this will take care of the installation. If you want to install as a service later, you can do this through the System Scheduler Preferences page, selecting the Services tab.

From version 3.0 System Scheduler Professional installs two services. One service called 'System Scheduler Service' is used for running tasks while logged off. The second 'System Scheduler Logon' Service is used by System Scheduler to auto-logon or auto-lock/unlock the computer.

Both services by default are configured to use the 'LocalSystem' account. The System Scheduler Service (used to run tasks) can be reconfigured to use a different account (e.g. if you wanted to run something that required Administrator privileges). But the System Scheduler Logon service should always be left as the 'LocalSystem' account and set to 'Interact with desktop'.

Install / Remove Service

Click the Install Service button to install the service on your Windows PC. When you view the service list through Service Manager you will see services called 'System Scheduler Service' and 'WS Logon' listed.

By default the System Scheduler Service will use the 'LocalSystem' account, and will be set to 'interact with the desktop'. You can specify an alternative login id and password for the service if you wish, for example if you needed to get System Scheduler to do something that the 'LocalSystem' account is not permitted to do, you can configure it to run under another account with higher privileges.

If you wish to remove the service click the 'Remove Service' button. Note, MS Windows may not immediately delete a service, rather it disables and marks it for deletion. Depending on how busy the system is it can be some time before the service is deleted.

Start / Stop Service

Use the start and stop service buttons to control whether the System Scheduler Services are running or not.

Sending Keypresses

The sendkeys feature of System Scheduler requires interaction with the desktop. When logged out no desktop is available therefore any tasks requiring keypresses to be sent must be run while the computer is logged in. If no one is logged in, System Scheduler Service will still run the application but the application will not receive any keypresses.

To get around this restriction you can setup a task to auto-logon the computer, then run the application task, and then logoff again.

Credentials

By default System Scheduler will use the currently logged in user credentials if a user is logged in. If no one is logged in then System Scheduler will run as a service using the service credentials (e.g. 'LocalSystem'). You can re-configure this behaviour for individual tasks. If you want a task to always be run by the Service, using the Service Credentials then you need to tick the box 'Always run this event using service credentials' - on the Advanced tab. Alternatively you can specify an individual user name and password whose credentials should be used to run an application.

Services in MS Windows do not have a user profiles associated with them, so if no one is logged in certain user profile options will not be available. For example, by default mapped network drive letters and user defined printers are not usually available to a service as these are defined by the users logged in profile. However, System Scheduler will automatically try to map network drives when running applications with the Service as long as this option is ticked in Advanced - Network Drives.

System Scheduler acquires the logged in user privileges by creating a second instance of itself when the user logs in, the first instance running as a service sits in the background and ignores any events that are not set to 'run using service credentials', letting the second instance take care of them. If the second instance (created by the logged in user) is stopped (either manually by the user, or as a result of the user logging off) then the first instance of System Scheduler (running as a service) takes over running all tasks again.

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