{"id":4471,"date":"2015-07-24T11:16:19","date_gmt":"2015-07-24T15:16:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jdhitsolutions.com\/blog\/?p=4471"},"modified":"2015-07-24T11:24:35","modified_gmt":"2015-07-24T15:24:35","slug":"friday-fun-tickle-me-powershell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jdhitsolutions.com\/blog\/powershell\/4471\/friday-fun-tickle-me-powershell\/","title":{"rendered":"Friday Fun: Tickle Me PowerShell!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I work at home for myself which means I have to act as my own assistant, reminding me of important events and tasks. And sometimes I need a little help. So why not use PowerShell? In the past I've used and written about using a background job to wait until a certain number of minutes have passed and then display a popup message using the MSG.EXE command line utility. The drawback to my previous approach is that if I close my PowerShell session I lose the background job. For reminders in the next 10-30 minutes perhaps that's ok. But for longer term reminders, I need a better solution.<\/p>\n

I don't know why I didn't go this route from the beginning, but I can accomplish the same result using a PowerShell scheduled job. A PowerShell scheduled job runs via the task scheduler which means it persists outside of PowerShell. All I really need are three things:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The time to kick off the task<\/li>\n
  2. The command to run<\/li>\n
  3. A registered scheduled job object<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The time to kick off is the Job Trigger. Here's how I can create a trigger for 30 minutes from now. My reminder only needs to run once.<\/p>\n

    $trigger = New-Jobtrigger -Once -at (Get-Date).AddMinutes(30)<\/code><\/pre>\n
    The command will be the MSG.EXE command.<\/p>\n
    $cmd = \"msg.exe $env:username Important phone call in 5 minutes\"<\/code><\/pre>\n
    This needs to be in the form of a script block.<\/p>\n
    $sb = {\r\nParam($cmd,$jobname)\r\nInvoke-Expression $cmd\r\n#forcibly remove the scheduledjob\r\nGet-ScheduledJob -Name $jobname | Unregister-ScheduledJob -Force\r\n}<\/pre>\n
    In my scriptblock I'm also going to delete the scheduled job. Finally I need to register it.<\/p>\n
    $jobname = \"phone call\"\r\nRegister-ScheduledJob -ScriptBlock $sb -Name $jobName -MaxResultCount 1 -Trigger $Trigger -ArgumentList $cmd,$jobname\r\n<\/code><\/pre>\n
    When the time arrives I get a popup message on my screen.<\/p>\n
    \"sample
    \nsample popup reminder<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n
    You can configure how long the message will be displayed before it is automatically dismissed. That's the essential part of the process. Here is the complete script to define the function, including an optional alias.<\/p>\n
    #requires -version 4.0\r\n#requires -module PSScheduledJob\r\n\r\nFunction New-ScheduledReminderJob {\r\n\r\n<#\r\n.Synopsis\r\nCreate a scheduled reminder background job.\r\n.Description\r\nThis command uses the MSG.EXE command line tool to send a reminder message to the currently logged on user, presumably yourself. The intention is to set ad-hoc popup reminders for the current user. The message will automatically dismiss after 1 minute unless you use the Wait parameter.\r\n\r\nYou can schedule the reminder for a certain number of minutes set the reminder to run at a specific date and time. The default is to schedule a reminder in 1 minute.\r\n\r\nThe function creates a scheduled background job so that you can close your PowerShell session without losing the job as well as persisting during reboots. The scheduled job will be removed upon completion. \r\n\r\n.Parameter Message\r\nThe text to display in the popup.\r\n.Parameter Time\r\nThe date and time to display the popup. If you enter just a time, it will default to the current day. See examples. \r\nThis parameter has aliases of date and dt. \r\n.Parameter JobName\r\nA name to assign to the job. If you don't specify a name, the function will use the name Reminder-N where N is an incrementing counter starting at 1. This parameter has an alias of Name.\r\n.Parameter Minutes\r\nThe number of minutes to wait before displaying the popup message.\r\n.Parameter Wait\r\nThe number of minutes to display the message before it automatically is dismissed. The default is 1 minute.\r\n.Example\r\nPS C:\\> new-scheduledreminderjob \"Switch over laundry\" -minutes 40 -name SwitchLaundry\r\n\r\nId         Name            JobTriggers     Command                                  Enabled   \r\n--         ----            -----------     -------                                  -------   \r\n1          SwitchLaundry   1               ...                                      True\r\n\r\nThis command creates a new job that will display a message in 40 minutes\r\n.Example\r\nPS C:\\> new-scheduledreminderjob \"Go home\" -time \"5:00PM\" -wait 2 | out-null\r\n\r\nCreate a reminder to be displayed at 5:00PM today for 2 minutes but don't display the job result.\r\n\r\n.Notes\r\nLast Updated: July 24, 2015\r\nVersion     : 2.2\r\nAuthor      : Jeff Hicks (@JeffHicks)\r\n              http:\/\/jdhitsolutions.com\/blog\r\n\r\nLearn more about PowerShell:\r\n
    Essential PowerShell Learning Resources<\/a><\/blockquote>