Make server automatic run asp-script every day

Question

Is it possible to create a batch-file which opens firefox, runs a website and then closes firefox again?

Something like:

@echo off
start firefox http         


        

Answer 1

Adapted from an article I wrote on aspfaq.com years ago.

Use the AT command and Windows Scripting Host (or the more rudimentary task scheduler) to schedule a VBS file at certain intervals.   

First, change the ASP to a VBS file. This is accomplished by (1) changing the extension to VBS; (2) changing all Server.CreateObject calls to CreateObject; and, (3) removing all <%%> delimiters and any browser-destined code (for example, response.write statement or client-side HTML). I didn't run into any further complications, but YMMV.   

You store the VBS file in the filesystem, and use the AT command to schedule it (this actually schedules its execution with Windows's schedule service). At a command prompt, you can use AT by itself to see a list of tasks currently in the schedule. You can use AT /? to find out all its syntax possibilities. 

For example, to get a file to run every weekday at 9:00 am, I launch this batch file (the first line clears existing entries):     

at /delete /y 
at 9:00 /every:m,t,w,th,f d:\net\shared\getdata.vbs      

Notice there is no web server involved; the file is accessed directly through the file system. Once I got over the "a user has to be logged in" and "the tasks have to be reset when rebooted" hurdles (both of which I believe are problems with the particular machine that is not under our control), all has been running fine for me. 

For an example of using WSH, CDONTS and the Task Scheduler to send out e-mails on a regular basis, see KB #221495. 

If all you are doing is database work in SQL Server, you might consider using a job. This will allow you to keep all the processing of the job within your database, and prevent the complications associated with multiple systems, connections, and adapting ASP code to be non-ASP-like in behavior.