Task Manager by GPO

[Tyras]

Does anyone know the best way or if it is possible to control the task manager on client machines via gpo? One thing that must happen is the tasks have to be run as the user of that machine (as opposed to local admin account)
Can't find too much on google about this. A few products here and there, but nothing about a gpo that will do it.
Our goal is to be able to centrally control maintainance tasks centrally.

Any ideas, or other ways this can be done?

Thanks
Tyras

 

[danjwalker]

I do not understand what you want to do.

So please give a precise example of what you want to do. I do not see how the task manager has anything to do with maintenance tasks.

 

[Stevehewitt]

Um, new tasks or apps ran by a local user will always run under the local security context.
If your users are running as local admins then I would personally look at changing that rather than GPO changes for Task Manager.

(FYI - the only standard GPO that I am aware of regarding Task Manager is to disable it from being accessed)

Thanks,




Steve.

"They have the internet on computers now!" - Homer Simpson

 

[Tyras]

I suppose I'll start by saying that I said Task Manager, when I really meant Task Scheduler. I should be slapped for that....done.

What I am trying to accomplish is have simple tasks being set up to run on my pc's. Examples are a defrag every 2 weeks, or disk check every so often. Simple tasks such as that.

I will admit that gpo is my weakest area, so I'm not really sure if what I'm thinking is something that can be done, or if there's another way to do it that may be better.

Hope that clarifies a bit.

 

[Stevehewitt]

From memory, I don't think there is anything that allows control over it as it's such a basic application.

For what you are trying to do, I would look at writting a script that does the defrag (probably as a .vbs) and then use the CMD line version of the task scheduler - AT

Create put the .VBS in a file share, and create a .bat logon script with the AT command and relevant switches to run your .VBS.

I'll be honest, it's not very elegant, and needs a bit of thinking to prevent a new AT entry everytime a user logs on.

Windows XP doesn't have a CLI version of the defrag utility, however Windows Vista does. If it breaks EULA's or copyright or something then for the record I don't suggest it - however I would imagine that you could simply copy the defrag.exe file from Windows Vista, slap it on all of your workstation and then create a script against that.

Once defrag.exe is deployed to all your clients, you could then use the AT utility from your workstation to setup the job remotely on all of the clients. (If you have a lot then you can even script the creation of AT command locally and get it to do the work for you)

I haven't tried the defrag.exe utility outside of Vista, so I don't know if it works - however my personal preference would be to try that, as trying to get a GUI app that doesn't have a CLI to work using just a script can be a nightmare.

There's been a lot of talk about automatic defrag's on this forum and the WinXP one - maybe an idea to run some searches on there too.

Good Luck,




Steve.

"They have the internet on computers now!" - Homer Simpson