Protection plans run on the computer as Windows Scheduled Tasks. When the Edit Schedule action for a plan is clicked, the standard Windows Task Scheduler is opened with some pre-filled settings for the plan.


The Edit Schedule action allows you to run a protection plan as an alternate user. That is, a user account that is different from the user which is currently logged in to the computer where the software is installed.


The Edit Schedule action also allows you to create a schedule to automatically run your protection plan.


A protection plan’s Windows Scheduled Task will be configured to match that computer’s Windows operating system. The task properties tabs below reference Windows Server 2003 tasks; for Windows Server 2008 and newer operating systems the tasks will instead use the General tab (for account information) and Triggers tab (for scheduling) to achieve the same settings.



Run as


From the Task tab of the Windows Task Scheduler, you can change the account information required for running the plan. By default, the Run as account is the user account of the currently logged in user.


Enter the user account you want to be effective when the plan runs and enter the password for that user account. When using this option, the Run only if logged on scheduling option is normally left unchecked.


You might change Run as account information for a task if it needs access to network mapped drives that are available under a different user account than the one currently logged on. In a Windows domain, use an account with Domain Admins and Backup Operators Group membership.


See User Account for more information.



Schedule


Click the New button on the Schedule tab to edit the various scheduling fields.


Use the Show multiple schedules option to set up multiple run times for the protection plan. You can create a single schedule for a plan that covers multiple days, times, and frequency of plan executions.


The field Schedule Task specifies how often the scheduled task (your protection plan) runs. Options are:


  • Daily
  • Weekly
  • Monthly
  • Once
  • At System Startup
  • At Logon
  • When Idle


The field Start Time specifies the starting time of the protection plan if the plan is scheduled for Daily, Weekly, Monthly, or only Once.


The field Schedule Task Daily (or Weekly) specifies how often, in days or weeks, the plan runs.



Advanced Schedule Options


An additional set of options to create enhanced schedules is available by clicking the Advanced button of the Schedule tab.


The Start Date field allows you to choose the starting day for the plan to run.


The End Date field allows you to choose the date that the plan will stop running. This field is optional and does not need to be set.


The Repeat task field allows you to set a plan to run repeatedly at the interval specified in the Every fields.