Replacement for XP messenger?

  • Thread starter Thread starter simonc
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simonc

On an XP machine I had a scheduled task which used "net start messenger" to
put up a message box telling any user using the machine to close files
because a backup was about to start.


I am now setting up a machine with Vista and the above command doesn't work.
What is the simplest way to do the same job?

Grateful for advice.
 
simonc said:
On an XP machine I had a scheduled task which used "net start
messenger" to
put up a message box telling any user using the machine to close files
because a backup was about to start.


I am now setting up a machine with Vista and the above command doesn't
work.
What is the simplest way to do the same job?

Grateful for advice.
Click to expand...

Easiest way is probably to schedule a small batch file, like this:

@Echo off
echo Save your files and close your apps.
echo Scheduled backup is about to start.
pause

Not very pretty, but gets the job done.
 
Thank you Zaphod (!)

This is much neater than messing with various supposed netsend utilities I
found browsing the internet.
 
simonc said:
Thank you Zaphod (!)

This is much neater than messing with various supposed netsend
utilities I
found browsing the internet.
Click to expand...

You are welcome, glad I could help.

Just because, I looked at a way to make it nicer and came up with this:

Save a file called BackupWarning.vbs somewhere, say C:\Users\Public,
with the following line in it:

MsgBox "Save your work and close your apps." & Chr(13) & Chr(10) &
"Scheduled backup is about to start.", 48, "Warning!"

(The above should be one single line. The & Chr(13) & Chr(10) & splits
the message up into two lines, the ', 48' makes it show the yellow
triangle and exclamation point, and the ', "Warning!"' gives it the
title . Google vbscript msgbox syntax for more options, including how
to change the icon displayed.)

Then, schedule a task with the following command:

cscript /nologo c:\users\public\BackupWarning.vbs

A bit nicer than the command prompt popping up, but I've not tested the
scheduling part under Vista so I don't know for sure it will work.
Works fine under XP though.
 
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