In Windows 7 x64 I am attempting to create a scheduled task that runs a PowerShell script, but no matter what I try, it fails with the error: "The system cannot find the file specified."
And then I noticed that many other scheduled tasks (Google updater, MS Office stuff, etc) were all failing with the same error.
So I simplified things, and created a straightforward task that does nothing more than run notepad:
Triggers Tab = No triggers.
Actions Tab
When I run this task, I get the same error, "The system cannot find the file specified. (0x80070002)"
I have confirmed that notepad.exe exists in the c:\windows\system32 location, and that it is a working executable. In fact, all of the tasks that are failing with that error appear to have legit paths and executables.
This makes me think there is something bigger at work here, like a hosed task scheduler, maybe a Windows Update patch that mucked about with the task scheduler workings.
What could cause this, and/or what are my next troubleshooting steps?
Since there is no answer at all, I answer how I would break it down:
svchost.exe
)PID
(process ID) and choose include ...
Show registry activity
in the menubarTools \ count occurances
result
in Column
and klick count
NAME NOT FOUND
value, doublecklick it to filter only this resultI had the same problem, but another cause. So my solution won't help the asker, but may be others that come to this question.
In my case, my environment variables were broken and my system was not able to launch PowerShell just by calling powershell
or powershell.exe
. After adding %SYSTEMROOT%\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\
to the PATH
environment variable, it was working again and the scheduled tasks ran successfully.
User contributions licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0