Here at Appnovation, we usually deploy Drupal sites on Linux servers. Recently, however, one of our clients needed Drupal to run off a Windows 2008 server. I had to set up a cron job on a Windows 2008 Server for Drupal and came across two methods for setting up a Scheduled Task. 1. Using the GUI - Click on Start and then go to Administrative Tools, once there click the “Task Scheduler” item - Once the Task Scheduler opens, click “Create Basic Task” - Give the task a name and description and click next - On the Date and Time screen, click “One Time” so that this task gets enabled once. Click Next. - On the Action screen, click “start program” and browse to the Internet Explorer executable stored within Program Files. - Add an argument to the “Action” screen which is the url for the drupal site (example: www.example.com/cron.php) - Click “Finish” - Now your task will be added to the Task Scheduler but there are additional configuration options we still need to define. - Find the task we just created within the Task list and right click on it, select “Properties” - On the “General” tab, select the option “Run whether user is logged in or not” - Under triggers, select “Edit” on the “One Time” option we created earlier. Select “Repeat this Task” and choose “Every 1 Hour” or however frequently you want your cron to run. Then select “indefinitely” to allow this Task to run for ever. 2. Using command line - Open a command line terminal and enter:
schtasks /create /tn "Drupal Cron Job" /tr " “C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe http://www.example.com/cron.php" /sc hourly
Note: These instructions were written for Windows XP but should be similar in other versions of Windows