Windows Task Scheduler executing old triggers even after recreating the task

Question

I had this task working perfectly until I changed the schedule. After I changed the scheduled time 5 minutes earlier, I noticed that in the history, it still triggers the old schedule. I tried deleting the task and recreating it even without a trigger and it's still executing the task with the old trigger. The attached screenshot shows that the task doesn't have a trigger but as you can see in the history it's still trying to execute the task. How does the Windows Task Scheduler work? Is there a file or database that I can purge the old task?

I also tried applying this hotfix but it didn't seem to fix the issue: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2461249

EDIT: The Error message in the history is: Task Scheduler failed to start "<the name of my task>" task for user "<the user>". Additional Data: Error Value: 2147750689.

Answer 1

Simplest solution is to restart the computer. This will re-start the Task Scheduler service which cannot normally be re-started via the Services UI.

Alternatively, you may want to experiment with using PSEXEC to launch a CMD prompt running as SYSTEM. At this point you can use NET STOP/START to re-start the Task Scheduler service.

• PSEXEC -i -s CMD
• NET STOP SCHEDULE
• NET START SCHEDULE

This worked on the (2k8 R2) TEST server where I was experiencing the same issue.

NB - I believe re-start of the scheduler service is not recommended by Microsoft. If you experience the issue on a production system, the re-start would be the preferred option.