Interface to work with the Task Scheduler - scheduled-tasks

Question

I'm developing a simple JScript script to be run by Windows Script Host.
This script needs to read some data from the Task Scheduler. I have no clue how to get started.
I've already implemented similar functionality in c++ using Task Scheduler 2.0 Interfaces
Can I use those interfaces in JScript somehow?

Answer 1

No, you can't use the Task Scheduler 2.0 interfaces from JScript.
What you can do however, is read the XML files that the task scheduler creates. They contain all properties of all defined tasks.
They reside in %windir%\system32\tasks (you need Administrator permissions to read this directory and its contents).
Here is an example of such a file, it's very straightforward XML:
<Task version="1.1" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/windows/2004/02/mit/task">
<RegistrationInfo>
<Author>SYSTEM</Author>
<Description>Some text here...</Description>
</RegistrationInfo>
<Triggers>
<LogonTrigger>
<Enabled>true</Enabled>
</LogonTrigger>
<CalendarTrigger>
<Enabled>true</Enabled>
<StartBoundary>2015-07-16T05:32:00</StartBoundary>
<ScheduleByDay>
<DaysInterval>1</DaysInterval>
</ScheduleByDay>
</CalendarTrigger>
</Triggers>
<Settings>
<Enabled>true</Enabled>
<ExecutionTimeLimit>PT0S</ExecutionTimeLimit>
<Hidden>false</Hidden>
<WakeToRun>false</WakeToRun>
<DisallowStartIfOnBatteries>false</DisallowStartIfOnBatteries>
<StopIfGoingOnBatteries>false</StopIfGoingOnBatteries>
<RunOnlyIfIdle>false</RunOnlyIfIdle>
<Priority>5</Priority>
<IdleSettings>
<Duration>PT600S</Duration>
<WaitTimeout>PT3600S</WaitTimeout>
<StopOnIdleEnd>false</StopOnIdleEnd>
<RestartOnIdle>false</RestartOnIdle>
</IdleSettings>
</Settings>
<Principals>
<Principal id="Author">
<UserId>System</UserId>
<RunLevel>HighestAvailable</RunLevel>
<LogonType>InteractiveTokenOrPassword</LogonType>
</Principal>
</Principals>
<Actions Context="Author">
<Exec>
<Command>C:\path\to\executable.exe</Command>
<Arguments>/args</Arguments>
</Exec>
</Actions>
</Task>
List of things to find out:
How to run a script with elevated permissions.
How to navigate a directory structure using the FileSystemObject.
How to open XML files using the MSXML2 COM objects
How to use XPath to navigate those XML documents.
How to deal with a default XML namespace (this is more important than it sounds - you won't get any results from XPath until you did this part correctly).
If necessary for your task, find out how ISO 8601 time period notation works so you can decode values like PT600S.
Luckily, for all of those things there are any number of examples available (on this site and elsewhere) to get you started.