Program Executer Timer

• Download demo - 4.74 Kb

Introduction

This article describes implementing something like the scheduled tasks for Windows, in a Web application, and this can be used without permissions from the administrator.

Background

I was working on an ASP.NET application and they required me to solve a problem of calling a web page at 12:00 PM everyday to do something.

Using the code

It's very simple. It uses a file placed on c:\named uRL.txt.

This file describes what a program will do, and other details, like:

In this example:

• NotePad.exe, is the application you want to invoke. It could be "Explorer" or "Internet Explorer" or whatever program you want to open.
• The second parameter here is the file to open: c:\Mytestfile.txt. It could be a URL like this: http://MySite.com, if you want IE to open it for you.
• 36000 - this is the time interval in seconds, 36000 if you want it to check each hour.
• 17 - this is the start time specified in a 24 hour clock.
• 12000 - this is the time to wait to close the program.

' this line to execute the program placed
' on the c:\URL.txt (Notepad.exe) on this example 
Process.Start(strProgramName,strURL)

' this Function to kill the process
Function Kill()
    Dim IE As System.Diagnostics.Process()
    IE = Process.GetProcessesByName(strProgramName)
    Dim i As Integer
    Dim IE1 As System.Diagnostics.Process
    For i = 0 To IE.Length - 1
        'end 
        IE1 = IE.GetValue(i)
        IE1.Kill()
    Next
End Function

' And this function to check if we are
' in time to execute the program ?

Function checker() As Boolean
    Dim currentHour As Integer = DateTime.Now.Hour
    If currentHour >= Integer.Parse(strDailyInterval) _
           And currentHour < Integer.Parse(strDailyInterval) + 1 Then
        checker = True
    Else
        checker = False
    End If
End Function

Points of Interest

It can be used in an ASP.NET application, or for remotely controlling PCs on a LAN. Place the URL.txt at any path, then you can load whatever site, or execute any program on the remote PC.

History

Hope you like it. I will be glad to see your comments in the forum below :).

This article has no explicit license attached to it but may contain usage terms in the article text or the download files themselves. If in doubt please contact the author via the discussion board below.

A list of licenses authors might use can be found here