Scripting a webpage hit in Windows Task Scheduler

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I needed to schedule an automatic hit to a page that resets a server in windows. Problem is that the Windows task scheduler will not open a shortcut. It errors out with “Invalid filename” because it reads the URL stored in the shortcut as the filename for some reason, and URL’s contain slashes. The page itself cannot be saved locally and opened – the URL itself is the information necessary.

My solution was to save a short html page to the desktop, containing only a redirect in the metatags. When the scheduler opens it, it automatically redirects to the Reset page.


<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;
charset=iso-8859-1">
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Refresh" Content="5;
URL=http://my.reset.url.com">
</head>