Software Review: VisualCron – an advanced Task Scheduler/automation tool for Windows
I have recently been contacted by Henrik Erlandsson (founder of VisualCron) asking me if I would take a closer look at his program and report back with my thoughts. I thought why not, I always like taking a look a new software. Here is my review of VisualCron 5.
VisualCron is described as the following on their website – “VisualCron is an advanced Task Scheduler/automation tool for Windows.” It goes on to say the following – “VisualCron provides advanced file/script execution, file transfer (FTP/FTPS/SFTP/SSH/HTTP), email, archiving (ZIP/TAR/GZIP), XML handling, Active directory tasks, encryption (PGP), desktop macro recording, send/receive emails, system control (Hibernate,Standby,Restart,Logoff), SQL execution and monitoring are standard functions of VisualCron. Above all, the interface of VisualCron is very easy to use. No programming skills are needed. “ and comes in a 45 day, fully functional, demo.
I installed VisualCron on my Windows 7 RC (build 7100) virtual machine. It was a standard type of install that had 7 steps. The total time of the install was about three minutes so it’s very painless.
During the installation you have the choice to install Client and Server or Client only. This allows you to use one central computer as a server to control tasks on clients that connect to it. This would be great in a corporate environment where it’s always easier to manager things centrally rather than have to go to each PC and configure everything.
Once you have VisualCron installed you will see an icon in the System Tray that allows you to manage both the client and server (as I have both installed on my test machine).
There are so many things that you can do with this application. You can create simple file deletion jobs to clear out temporary files to complex backups and restore of remote servers. One of the simple tests that I set up was to check the desktop for a folder called “New Folder” and then delete it. It was configured to run every five minutes. This job only took me a few minutes to set up and was very straight forward and easy. This is a big plus given the complexity and granularity of the options available.
If you are a programmer and would like to create your own applications that interface with VisualCron, you can do so with their custom API. They even include a PDF with their API documentation and it is accessible through the Help menu.
When I write reviews of applications that are tailored for specific groups such as the more technical savvy and even system administrator types, I often have a hard time deciding if I should comment about the look and feel of the application. In a case like this, I think that the functionality is what will make or break the application’s usefulness but the user interface is quite nice none the less. VisualCron has the “new” windows application look (ribbon interface) which I feel makes it easier to use. Unfortunately I have not used older versions so I am unable to compare the two but from my experience with other applications it is most likely the case.
There are a couple quirks I think are worth noting. I was getting an error message that I was unable to write to the configuration file in the C:\Program Files\VisualCron. This was solved by adding Modify permissions (for the Users group) to that folder. This can also be accomplished by turning off UAC (User Account Control) in Windows but I don’t recommend that as it could be considered a security risk. I also noticed that the Pop-Up feature (a configurable part of a job) required me to click View the message on an Interactive Services Detection dialogue box. Upon further investigation Windows Help provided me with the following explanation: “Some devices and programs that are not fully compatible with Windows do not display their messages on your desktop, but might need your permission or other information to complete a task.”.
All in all, I think this application is very useful. Home users could use this program to create automated backups of web sites or important personal files. Because of the Windows Active Directory integration I could see this making the life of a Windows administrator much easier by helping keep Active Directory pruned . There are probably a thousand other ways that it could benefit anyone who manages Windows based systems. It is a great and very versatile program, I only wish I had the time and resources to test it more thoroughly in a corporate style environment as I think that is where it would excel!
Did you enjoy this post? Why not leave a comment below and continue the conversation, or subscribe to my feed and get articles like this delivered automatically to your feed reader.
Comments
No comments yet.
Leave a comment