Powershell Scheduled Task At Startup Repeating - powershell

Question

I'm trying to create a Scheduled Task with the following Trigger:
- Startup
- Run every 5 minutes
- Run indefinitely
In the GUI I can do this easily by selecting:
- Begin the task: at startup
And in the Advanced tab:
- Repeat task every: 5 minutes
- For a duration of: indefinitely
But I'm having trouble doing it with Powershell.
My troubled code:
$repeat = (New-TimeSpan -Minutes 5)
$duration = ([timeSpan]::maxvalue)
$trigger = New-ScheduledTaskTrigger -AtStartup -RepetitionInterval $repeat -RepetitionDuration $duration
It won't take the RepetitionInterval and RepetitionDuration parameters. But I need that functionality.
How could I accomplish my goal?

Answer 1

To set the task literally with a "Startup" trigger and a repetition, it seems you have to reach in to COM (or use the TaskScheduler UI, obviously..).
# Create the task as normal
$action = New-ScheduledTaskAction -Execute "myApp.exe"
Register-ScheduledTask -Action $action -TaskName "My Task" -Description "Data import Task" -User $username -Password $password
# Now add a special trigger to it with COM API.
# Get the service and task
$ts = New-Object -ComObject Schedule.Service
$ts.Connect()
$task = $ts.GetFolder("\").GetTask("My Task").Definition
# Create the trigger
$TRIGGER_TYPE_STARTUP=8
$startTrigger=$task.Triggers.Create($TRIGGER_TYPE_STARTUP)
$startTrigger.Enabled=$true
$startTrigger.Repetition.Interval="PT10M" # ten minutes
$startTrigger.Repetition.StopAtDurationEnd=$false # on to infinity
$startTrigger.Id="StartupTrigger"
# Re-save the task in place.
$TASK_CREATE_OR_UPDATE=6
$TASK_LOGIN_PASSWORD=1
$ts.GetFolder("\").RegisterTaskDefinition("My Task", $task, $TASK_CREATE_OR_UPDATE, $username, $password, $TASK_LOGIN_PASSWORD)

Answer 2

New-ScheduledTaskTrigger uses parameter sets. When you specify that you want the scheduled task to start up "at logon" you are restricting yourself to the following parameter set:
Parameter Set: AtStartup
New-ScheduledTaskTrigger [-AtStartup] [-RandomDelay <TimeSpan> ] [ <CommonParameters>]
What may be more beneficial is if you use your "at startup" scheduled task to register a new scheduled task to run every five minutes using the "once" parameter set:
Parameter Set: Once
New-ScheduledTaskTrigger [-Once] -At <DateTime> [-RandomDelay <TimeSpan> ] [-RepetitionDuration <TimeSpan> ] [-RepetitionInterval <TimeSpan> ] [ <CommonParameters>]
Your Scheduled Task Trigger should successfully be assigned once you are using the correct parameter set.

Answer 3

See my answer here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/61646465/2943191
It is actually relatively simple, once a working example is written, of course.
Instead of -AtLogOn use -AtStartup.

Answer 4

For what it’s worth, I too ran into this issue as I was particularly perturbed that this functionality was pulled from PowerShell for -AtStartup. However, upon further review, the same functionality can be performed by just be using -Once and configuring it to repeat. In the OP’s case of having this run every five minutes, it probably won’t make a difference if this is run at startup or five minutes thereafter.
I have confirmed this with -Once and then configuring it to repeat. It will also perform the repeats when the system is restarted. This is somewhat different from #BryceMcDonald’s answer in that you don’t need to create two triggers—just create the -Once one and you’ll be good to go.