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I just noticed that I can no longer start, stop, or restart the Task Scheduler service. When I open a Command window and attempt to stop the service in that fashion, I get an "permission denied" error, even when running as Administrator.

Is there a solution to this issue? I am running Vista SP1.

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Please note that Microsoft has done this to prevent yo from stopping that service as it is crucial. – Tom Wijsman Nov 1 '11 at 13:44
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4 Answers

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You should not disable Task Scheduler in Vista or Windows 7. Unlike XP, Vista actually uses Task Scheduler to perform system tasks.

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I had to down vote this because it doesn't fix the problem. – dlux Feb 11 '11 at 20:22
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up vote 4 down vote

You can't stop the task scheduler. From Technet ...

The Task Scheduler service cannot be stopped or disabled by administrators using the Services Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in user interface, unless special permissions are added to the administrator token.

There are some registry tweaks that claim to get it to stop, but your best bet is to use a tool. Security Explorer has a trial version that should work for you. If you want to prevent users from scheduling tasks, there is a way.

The best registry entry I found was below. But I don't have a Vista machine to test it on.

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Schedule]
"Start"=dword:00000002
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I already have that Registry flag set with that value. Maybe I've never been able to disable it and never noticed before. – RHPT Aug 2 '09 at 17:24
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up vote 1 down vote 
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Schedule]
"Start"=dword:00000002

That is almost correct. Set it to 4 and reboot to disable. Some things will not work right such as updates (sometimes). Just re-enable when you go to run updates.

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Please note that this is a crucial service and should most likely not be disabled. – Tom Wijsman Nov 1 '11 at 13:45
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up vote 0 down vote

This is the behavior I'm seeing too.

There is a check box under the 'Services' tab of msconfig for 'Task Scheduler' though. Maybe that would be worth exploring?

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if you uncheck this box - it just immediately rechecks itself – Simon Jan 12 '11 at 23:52
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