Managing Windows scheduled tasks - SCHTASKS output misleading

Here's a little gem - found on Windows Server SP2 but still there on Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 at least.

I wanted to write a little script to disable some scheduled tasks (for maintenance) then after a predetermined time to re0-enable them. This is a common support problem, and I find I often complete the maintenance and forget to re-enable the tasks which results in alarms going off - but maybe not until the start of the next working day.

Anyhow, Windows gives you (at least) two ways of interacting with scheduled tasks:

1. SCHTASKS
2. PowerShell and the PowerShellPack which includes a TaskScheduler module

Although Powershell is an attractive option for scripting, PowerShellPack is poorly documented and the TaskScheduler module is a bit lacking. You can create, start, stop, register or get a task but there doesn't seem to be a cmdlet for actually enabling or disabling a task.

So, back to using groovy as a wrapper to SCHTASKS. All fine, we can use execute to create a CMD process that calls SCHTASKS /query to get the task status. Here's an example using easy-to-parse CSV format:

C:\>schtasks /query /fo csv /tn "\Apple\AppleSoftwareUpdate"
"TaskName","Next Run Time","Status"
"\Apple\AppleSoftwareUpdate","31/01/2012 11:15:00","Ready"

We can see that "Status" is in field 3 on the heading line, and its value is "Ready" on the data line. That's great.
To disable the task, we can then:

C:\>schtasks /change /disable  /tn "\Apple\AppleSoftwareUpdate"
SUCCESS: The parameters of scheduled task "\Apple\AppleSoftwareUpdate" have been changed.

Now let's check the status again:

C:\>schtasks /query /fo csv /tn "\Apple\AppleSoftwareUpdate"

"TaskName","Next Run Time","Status"
"\Apple\AppleSoftwareUpdate","Disabled",""

Yay! The task is indeed disabled - but look how the status has swapped into field 2 - under "Next Run Time". Presumably because there is no next run time while the task is disabled. A blank 3rd field value has been provided, but it is in the wrong place. Whatever way you list out the data, the error is still there:

C:\>schtasks /query /fo table /tn "\Apple\AppleSoftwareUpdate"

Folder: \Apple
TaskName                                 Next Run Time          Status
======================================== ====================== ===============
AppleSoftwareUpdate                      Disabled


C:\>schtasks /query /fo list /tn "\Apple\AppleSoftwareUpdate"

Folder: \Apple
HostName:      PIERO
TaskName:      \Apple\AppleSoftwareUpdate
Next Run Time: Disabled
Status:
Logon Mode:    Interactive/Background

OK, now I know this, I can work around it. But another example of MS inconsistency (which no doubt is now firmly baked in for "backward compatibility" for ever and a day...