Task Scheduler Repair - Trashed when reverting Win10 back to Win7

[Dougcuk]

I had to assist a customer of mine today who had allowed his Win7 system to upgrade to Win10
The PC was suffering frequent total lockups with no obvious cause - other than the upgrade.
No event log clues or crash dumps were found - so hunt the bug or downgrade back to Win7 ??

I downgraded him back to Win7 and used GRC Never10 to keep him there.
Fixed a few corrupted applications and all was well

Except for one thing - the Task Scheduler had masses of corrupted task error messages
Apparently the revert from Win10 back to Win7 is known to cause this problem
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsserver/en-US/80e4f83d-1529-4405-b8e3-d1d636f8b71c

I found a special utility that scans and repairs the Win7 Task Scheduler Library   
https://repairtasks.codeplex.com/
The reviews look really good - might be worth a look if you encounter this issue

Doug Collins - Computer Support Engineer - London UK

[Boggin]

Did you find that it worked for your client or did you do it the "hard way" as this article refers to ?

[Dougcuk]

Worked perfectly - 52 tasks fixed - no more errors.
I think the utility had to reload 2 tasks from the clean backup (ZIP) provided on the site
- all the rest it fixed without problems. 

[Boggin]

Reviews tend to say what a program will do but personal experience and recommendation say a lot more for any program - so this one sounds like it will do exactly what it says on the tin and something more to add to the toolbox.

Thanks for bringing it to our attention.

[Julian]

Very nice find! I have to show this to Shane!

[Willy2]

- Does any one know where those Task Scheduler tasks are stored/located ? Then one can export those (*.xml ????) files first and then re-import them into Task Scheduler at the appropriate time. E.g after a fresh clean re-install of e.g. Win 7.

[Dougcuk]

As I understand it you can import individual Tasks into Task Scheduler using an XML file via the Import function
- but these have to be created one by one using the Export function from within Task Scheduler
- which is OK for transferring a limited number of user created tasks.

The files stored by Windows are located at \Windows\System32\Tasks - but these are not the XML files you need for the import function within Task Scheduler. They are just part of the integrated Task Scheduler system - the full system comprises the above folder plus all the associated registry entries - and are keyed to a specific Windows install using a digital signature key. As far as I know this makes it impossible to transplant these files directly from one computer to another - as the digital key is invalidated - and the registry keys are not updated.

To reinstate the complete Microsoft library of standard tasks is very tricky and time consuming without the use of the RepairTasks utility and the associated Zip file containing the full Win7 standard tasks library.