Windows Tips

Automating Windows XP
If you use your computer very much—and if you’re reading this book you probably do—you probably find yourself repeatedly performing the same steps to accomplish a number of ordinary tasks. The task might be a routine maintenance activity, such as backing up your data or cleaning detritus from your hard disk, or it might be a job that requires many steps. Computers excel at repetitive actions, and Microsoft Windows XP provides several ways to automate such tasks:

Task Scheduler.

This service launches programs on a regular schedule or upon certain events, such as logging on to your computer.

Batch programs.

These programs, a throwback to the earliest days of MS-DOS, still provide an easy, reliable way to run a sequence of programs and commands. Most programs can be started from a command prompt, which means they can be started from a batch program.

Windows Script Host.

This feature allows you to run scripts written in VBScript, JScript, and other languages. Although learning how to use Windows Script Host is more difficult than learning how to create batch programs, scripts can interact with the operating system and with other programs in much more powerful ways.