Automating Spybot S&D With Windows' Scheduled Tasks Feature
Windows Task Scheduler
Thank Goodness For Automation!My real estate partner was up early this morning, getting prepped for another open house, and took a look at the server which was running a scheduled spyware / adware scan. He wanted to know how to pull it off, because when he configured the award-winning Spybot Search & Destroy, he never saw a scheduling option. Well, there isn't a scheduling option, but Spybot S&D can be executed from command prompt. Any application that can be launched this way, can easily be configured to run using the often-neglected "Scheduled Tasks" feature in almost every version of Windows.
While folder locations may vary from system to system, most people can simply create a new task, and copy and paste my string to the appropriate fields.
RUN: "C:\Program Files\Spybot - Search & Destroy\SpybotSD.exe" /autoupdate /autoimmunize /minimized /autocheck /autofix /onlyspyware
START IN: "C:\Program Files\Spybot - Search & Destroy"
You can then customize it to run whenever you want. You can add or remove parameters (the things after the quote in the RUN field), to further augment your scan. Here are the useful parameters:
/minimized - Starts the window minimized.
/autoupdate - Does an update after starting the program.
/autocheck - Starts scanning immediately.
/autofix - Fixes problems after scan.
/autoclose - Closes program after it has scanned or updated.
/autoimmunize - Runs the immunization at program start.
/onlyspyware - Fixes only spyware (red) entries with /autofix, leaving all usage tracks as they are.
Similarly, you can set up scheduled scans with my antivirus of choice, Avast Antivirus, using the command line: "C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\ashQuick.exe" c: d: e: (add on any drives you want to scan).
I also use WinRAR's command line option to do nightly compressed backups, triple-encrypt the archive, generate PAR2 parity files (I can recover files, even if up to 9% of the archive was damaged), and upload them to our offsite server automatically during the night. What's great is I can even control system priority. Stiff runs high-priority at night, and low-priority during work hours so it doesn't slow down our network apps and file-sharing.