WinCron 1.0 Schedule Commands

The WinCron 1.0 application is a basic task scheduler for the Windows 9x/NT operating system environment. WinCron takes input from files of format similar to the popular UNIX cron application and dispatches Windows applications according to scheduling criteria.

WinCron does not replace the functionality of the Windows Task Scheduler. It provides the same functinality as the UNIX cron application as implemented using Dillon's dcron program. User's familiar with this popular UNIX tool will feel comfortable with WinCron.

WinCron has the additional feature that it supports a complete Dynamic Data Exchange interface to the scheduling process. This allows scripts or applications that are DDE capable to shedule the running of tasks by interacting with WinCron.

Installation

Download the WinCron 1.0 archive. Unpack the archive in some suitable place, such as the location you store your user commands.

Create a directory named CRON in the \WINDOWS\PROFILES\user name\APPLICATION DATA path. Here user name is the user name you use to log on to Windows. Copy the supplied default.job file to the new directory. Edit this file, using notepad for example, to reflect your own default requirements.

Optionally, you can drop the cron.exe executable into the Windows startup directory and have it start each time you sign onto your system.

Using WinCron 1.0

WinCron comes with a Windows Help database that covers the operation of the program and the DDE interface. The command line has the following format:

cron -file filespec -user name -mode [visible | iconic | hidden] -zone [gmt | local]

where filespec is the name of the job scheduler file to use, name is the user name to use, the mode values specify the initial state of the main application window, and the zone specifies how WinCron is to interpret job scheduler criteria.

By default, cron looks for a file named default.job in the profile of the current system user. The default window mode is visible, and the default time zone is local. The window mode values have the obvious effects. If you have a fully debugged schedule, then you will probably want to run with a window mode of hidden.

Scheduling criteria can be tied to the default time zone, the local time zone or the GMT time zone. The command line parameter specifies which zone is the default zone. All schedules specified as relating to the default zone will assume whatever value is specified on the command line.