Most users and administrators use the taskschd.msc graphical interface console to create and manage scheduled tasks on Windows. However, in various scripts and automated flows, it is much more convenient to use the PowerShell features to create scheduled tasks. In this article, we’ll show how to create and manage Windows Scheduler tasks using PowerShell.

Managing Scheduled Tasks on Windows via PowerShell

The ScheduledTasks PowerShell module is used to manage scheduled tasks on Windows 10/Windows Server 2016. You can list the cmdlets in a module as follows:

Get-Command -Module ScheduledTasks

• Disable-ScheduledTask
• Enable-ScheduledTask
• Export-ScheduledTask
• Get-ClusteredScheduledTask
• Get-ScheduledTask
• Get-ScheduledTaskInfo
• New-ScheduledTask
• New-ScheduledTaskAction
• New-ScheduledTaskPrincipal
• New-ScheduledTaskSettingsSet
• New-ScheduledTaskTrigger
• Register-ClusteredScheduledTask
• Register-ScheduledTask
• Set-ClusteredScheduledTask
• Set-ScheduledTask
• Start-ScheduledTask
• Stop-ScheduledTask
• Unregister-ClusteredScheduledTask
• Unregister-ScheduledTask

Creating Scheduled Task with Windows PowerShell

In modern versions of PowerShell (starting with PowerShell 3.0 on Windows Server 2012/Windows 8), you can use the New-ScheduledTaskTrigger and Register-ScheduledTask cmdlets to create scheduled tasks.

Suppose, we need to create a scheduled task that should run during startup (or at a specific time) and execute some PowerShell script or command. Let’s create a scheduled task named StartupScript1. This task should run the PowerShell script file C:\PS\StartupScript.ps1 at 10:00 AM every day. The task will be executed with elevated privileges (checkbox “Run with highest privileges”) under the SYSTEM account.

$Trigger= New-ScheduledTaskTrigger -At 10:00am -Daily
$User= "NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM"
$Action= New-ScheduledTaskAction -Execute "PowerShell.exe" -Argument "C:\PS\StartupScript1.ps1"
Register-ScheduledTask -TaskName "StartupScript1" -Trigger $Trigger -User $User -Action $Action -RunLevel Highest –Force

If the task was created successfully, the status “Ready” appears.

Your PowerShell script will run on the specified schedule. If you have a PowerShell Execution Policy enabled on your computer that prevents PS1 scripts from executing, you can run a PowerShell script from a scheduled task with the –Bypass parameter.

Use this code when creating a new task:

$Action= New-ScheduledTaskAction -Execute "PowerShell.exe" -Argument “-NoProfile -NoLogo -NonInteractive -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File C:\PS\StartupScript.ps1"

Open the taskschd.msc console and make sure you have a new scheduler task in the Task Scheduler Library.

How to View and Run Scheduled Tasks with PowerShell?

You can list all active scheduled tasks on Windows with the command:

Get-ScheduledTask -TaskPath | ? state -ne Disabled

To get information about a specific task:

Get-ScheduledTask CheckServiceState| Get-ScheduledTaskInfo

LastRunTime : 4/7/2021 10:00:00 AM
LastTaskResult : 267011
NextRunTime : 4/8/2021 10:00:00 AM
NumberOfMissedRuns : 0
TaskName : CheckServiceState
TaskPath : \
PSComputerName :

You can disable this task:

Get-ScheduledTask CheckServiceState | Disable-ScheduledTask

To enable a task:

Get-ScheduledTask CheckServiceState | Enable-ScheduledTask