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I am using Windows 7 home edition. I want to make my computer wait a certain amount of time, then beep in warning right before it terminates a program. As a test, I wrote the following batch file to make Windows Media Player play the radio, wait 10 seconds, then beep and turn it off:

@echo off

start "_" "C:Program Files (x86)Windows Media Playerwmplayer.exe" "http://www.cpr.org/content_category_templates/listenTemplate/listenClassical48.asx"

sleep 10

@echo ^G

@echo ^G

@echo ^G

@echo ^G

taskkill /im wmplayer.exe /f

Note: following instructions I found in another question on this site, the "^G" thingy is the character you get when you type control + G at a command prompt. It does not seem to appear on this site, so I replaced it with ^G.

This worked perfectly. Until, that is, I attempted to make it run automatically using the Windows Task Scheduler. I tried this several times an it did not beep. The other functions worked fine, but no beep was audible.

The script did not run in a window when started by the task scheduler, and I concluded that this must cause problems with the echo command (nothing to echo to). So, after spending some time searching for a method of causing the beep that did not involve echo, I eventually rewrote the whole thing in the form of a VB .NET console program:

Imports System.Threading



Module Beep



    Sub Main()

        Dim wmp As New System.Diagnostics.Process

        wmp.StartInfo.FileName = "C:Program Files (x86)Windows Media Playerwmplayer.exe"

        wmp.StartInfo.Arguments = "http://www.cpr.org/content_category_templates/listenTemplate/listenClassical48.asx"

        wmp.StartInfo.WindowStyle = ProcessWindowStyle.Hidden

        wmp.Start()

        Thread.Sleep(New TimeSpan(0, 0, 10))

        Console.Beep()

        Console.Beep()

        Console.Beep()

        Console.Beep()

        wmp.Kill()

    End Sub



End Module

This works the same way — including the fact that it only beeps when called manually. When called from the task scheduler, it also fails to beep. I'm not sure what else to try, here. Any help would be appreciated.

It's possible that there's a problem with trying to launch the media player system from a script. You can create a batch script with the Ctrl+G character as you mentioned, and it will use the system beep. I don't think the Ctrl+C method you were talking about actually works.

Open a command prompt, change directories to where you want to save the batch file, and type the following commands:

copy con beep.cmd

Ctrl+G, Ctrl+Z

Now, if you run beep.cmd, it should use the system beep.

I created a system task to run this batch file, and when I run the task manually, the command window appears and beeps, then exits.

The way this works is that it copies whatever you type in the command window into the specified file, in this case beep.cmd. You can't just put in ^G in the file, even though that's what appears on screen, because typing that is really just typing ^ and G, while ^G is actually a representation of a different ASCII character altogether. By using the command window method, you can save the actual keypress into the file. You can then edit the batch file if you want it to do other things, just make sure to preserve the line with the special character. It will probably just look like an empty box in notepad.

Look for an option in your Task Scheduler in your Scheduled Task's properties called [something along the lines of] "interact with user" or "interactive" (or something like that). It should be a checkbox, and if you turn it on then it should cause your task to appear in the GUI as well as the audio system.

Failing that, Steve Gibson's (the creator of the famous SpinRite disk repair utility) has a freeware command-line tool called "Wizmo" which can play a .wav file from a batch file:

  Wizmo (no installation required - this is a stand-alone tool)

  http://www.grc.com/wizmo/wizmo.htm

I'm hoping that this can do the job for you as well (if it does, then you'll obviously need to record a beep sound in a .wav file).