Scheduled Task Pre/Post Commands

I've looked at Pre/Post Commands for a scheduled task and read over the help section associated with the commands, but help is somewhat vague. I understand the use of batch files, but the window talks about using commands instead of batch files and also default commands. I've looked around for info regarding stand alone and default commands, but do not find anything helpful. Is there more detailed info available about pre/post commands?

What I'd like to do is to create a pre command that delays the task if the PC is booted and the scheduled start time has passed; perhaps by a 1/2 hour or so or until a manual answer of yes is need to proceed with the past due scheduled backup. For example a backup is scheduled for 8PM, and the computer is booted at 10PM and the task is set to start if past due; the backup is very drive and priority intensive when running. I'd like to delay the past due task start by minutes or choice or have to manually answer yes to start the past due backup. That would give some time to do other tasks first without much system burden. In contrast, if the computer is already running, I'd like for the task to start automatically without modification or intervention.

TI 10 Home, BTW

 

Hello dthigpen,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please be aware that you can use as pre/post any command that can be executed via Start->Run, with the limitation that interactive (i.e. requiring user input, for example "pause") commands are not supported (as described in the chapter 5.3.3 "Pre/post commands" of the User's Guide).

Please notice that you can choose not to run the task automatically after boot if the computer was switched off, and then run the task manually from the schedule manager.

Thank you.
--
Marat Setdikov

 

Thanks Marat.

I think I'll just write a batch file to count down for a few minutes to wait for input and if none, then proceed with the task.

I didn't know that cmd.exe commands could be used; except for interactive. Thanks for the clarification. There's been a few other posts here in forum where users would click the down arrow and no commands were present; they assumed that the feature was broken.