I have a backup of some .job files (i.e, scheduled tasks) from my old computer. I see that windows 7 does not support job files instead they accept xml files. So, i would like to know if there is a way to convert job files to xml files and import them into windows 7 machine?
Thanks.
If your machines are not on the same domain or cant otherwise communicate, using the /S switch wont work so you need an alternative. Although the above answer that describes the manual process worked for me as well, I wanted an easier way to do it and came up with this: http://briandunnington.github.io/migrate-scheduled-jobs.html
Essentially, you copy your .job files to c:\windows\tasks, then run the script (providing a username/password) and your jobs are automatically converted - no messing with copying old dlls, creating batch script, renaming things, etc.
Building off the answers and comments...
You don't need to download any software, or go through a convoluted process of commands and spreadsheets.
Here's a batch file which does this properly and accounts for spaces in the task names.
The only things you need to do are copy the .job files from the XP machine to the Vista - Windows 10 machine, copy schtasks.exe from the XP machine to the new machine, and change user and password in the below batch file.
The batch file itself explains it all.
@echo off
setlocal
echo 1) Copy the .job files from your XP machine to c:\windows\tasks on the new machine.
echo .
echo 2) Copy schtasks.exe from c:\windows\system32 on your XP machine and put it in the same folder as this batch file on the machine running Vista - Windows 10.
echo.
echo 3) Change user below to the user that will own / run the tasks on the new machine.
echo .
echo 4) Change password to the password of that user.
echo .
echo 5) Run this batch file.
pause
if not exist schtasks.exe (
echo You don't have schtasks.exe in the same folder as this batch file.
echo Copy schtasks.exe from c:\windows\system32 on your XP machine and put it in the same folder as this batch file and
echo try again.
goto end
)
rem change user as instructed above
set tmpuser=user
rem change pass as instructed above
set tmppass=password
echo You should now see every job getting imported into the new OS.
for %%a in ("c:\windows\tasks\*.job") do schtasks.exe /change /TN "%%~na" /RU %tmpuser% /RP %tmppass%
echo Done! Note: Do NOT delete the job files. Windows apparently still needs them.
:end
endlocal
This process requires that you can get to information on your XP machine, because you will need all of the .job files. But it will take all of your .job files and create the .xml and the associated scheduled tasks. A co-worker came up with the files and general process for me when I upgraded systems and had 260 .job files to transfer and I wrote it up to try to be able to help others in my same position. It's a little long, but it works, and that's all that matters. Hope it helps!
If you still have access to a PC with XP on it, you can import the .JOB files (if they're not already present in Task Scheduler) and try the following command from an elevated command prompt in Win7:
schtasks /query /s remote_computer_name /u remote_user_name /p remote_password /xml > output_file.xml
If no physical XP machine is available perhaps a VM might also work, but I'm not entirely sure.
