The Microsoft Update site in Vista has been replaced by a Control Panel applet. To automate the reminder in Vista, you’ll need to set up two automated processes: one for patching Windows, and another for launching a browser showing the Secunia Software Inspector.

Follow these steps to run Windows Update once a month after Patch Tuesday:

Step 1: Choose Start, type Task Scheduler, and press Enter. Click to confirm User Account Control.

Step 2: In the far right pane, click Create Basic Task.

Step 3: In the Create Basic Task Wizard, type the name of your task and (optionally) a description. Click Next.
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schedule, scheduled tasks, vista, Windows, windows vista

You can make Scheduled Tasks run a script that launches Internet Explorer 7 with Microsoft Update in one tab and Secunia Software Inspector in another. I use IE 7 in this example because Microsoft Update won’t run in most other browsers, such as Mozilla Firefox. The technique shown below is adapted from a Windows Scripting Host script published by Tony Schreiner in his MSDN blog.

Step 1. Open your favorite text editor, such as Notepad. Type or paste in the following five lines:

var navOpenInBackgroundTab = 0×1000;
var oIE = new ActiveXObject(”InternetExplorer.Application”);
oIE.Navigate2(”http://update.microsoft.com”);
oIE.Navigate2(”http://secunia.com/software_inspector/”, navOpenInBackgroundTab);
oIE.Visible = true;
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schedule, scheduled tasks, Windows, Windows XP, xp