Using Windows Task Scheduler to run a task on wake up

edited July 2009 in Science & Tech
I have googled to find a way to schedule a task to run when Windows Vista wakes up from stand by. All the information I found were related to scheduling tasks to wake up the computer or random wake up issues.

I need this to reset the overclock settings in Rivatuner after wake up since Rivatuner occasionally fails to reset the fan speeds after wake up.

Here is how I did.

Step 1: Opened Event Viewer (Control Panel > Administrative Tools) and searched the System Event Log for the Event ID for system wake up. This will be needed in Task Scheduler. The event log had the following info
Log Name: System
Source: Power-Troubleshooter
Event ID: 1

Step 2: Opened Rivatuner > Launcher. Added a new item that will set the GPU clock and fan speed profiles. Also created a shortcut for this launcher item. Now if I right click on this shortcut and choose properties, there is a cryptic command line option that specifies the profiles for GPU clocks and fan speeds. Copied that option which was /L:4a462483 for my case but will be different for others.

Step 3: Opened Task Scheduler (Control Panel > Administrative Tools) and clicked "Create Task" on the list of actions.
- General tab: Give a name to the task.
- Triggers tab: Choose and input the data as listed in Event log in Step 1
Begin the task -> On an event
Log: -> System
Source: -> Power-Troubleshooter
Event ID: -> 1
check "Enabled"
click "OK"
- Actions tab:
Click "New"
Action: -> Start a program
Browse and choose the executable Rivatuner.exe
Add argument -> the command line option that was copied in Rivatuner
Click "OK"
- Conditions tab:
Uncheck the Power options
Click "OK"
Click "OK" again to create the task ... done!

The Task Scheduler in Windows is such a useful utility/tool that can be used for many other purposes. It can also greatly reduce many constantly-running background processes running like "parasites" in the system and doing very simple tasks regularly, such as updaters installed by some programs (e.g. Sun Java updater, Apple Quicktime updater, etc.) I have no idea why such big software developers, such as Apple and Sun, choose to pollute the Windows startup programs instead of doing things in an elegant way. I will not speculate on the reasons. But I need to give kudos to Google for using Windows Task Scheduler for Google update tasks. Yep, they do!
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