"An error has occurred for task ~ Error message: The specified account name is not valid" when trying to create a new Basic Scheduled Task

Hi Donehomr,

Thank you for posting your query in Microsoft Community.

I understand the inconvenience you are facing currently.

I would appreciate if you can provide us the following information to help us understand the issue better.

• Is the computer connected to a domain?
• Have you tried using the task scheduler in a different account?
• Have you tried scheduling the task through an administrator account?

It seems that the account you are using does not have the rights to schedule the task. If you have another User Account, I would like you to check if the same issue occurs in that User Account. If you do not then create a new Administrator User Account and check if the issue persist.

Refer the link below:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/create-user-account#create-user-account=windows-10 

Hope the information helps. Please let us know if the issue persist and we will be happy to assist you further.

Thanks for the courteous, standard response to my post, however your reply is the EXACT REASON I gave you all of the information that I don't think you read at the very beginning of my post.

Frankly, this is the EXACT SAME REPLY I have seen posted to other users complaining of this same issue... So please do not copy/paste your reply to this response as you did above.

To recap: "This is my home desktop PC, I am the only person that uses this computer, my account is (supposed to be) the administrator account and I am logged in with my Microsoft account, there are no other user accounts."

• I am NOT on a domain (obviously, since this is my home desktop PC, wouldn't that be obvious to you?) If so, then why would you ask me this?
  
• Since I am the only person that uses this computer, and there are no other user accounts, doesn't it seem obvious to you that I would not have tried using the task scheduler in a different account??? - If so, then why would you ask me this?
  
• Since my account is the administrator account and I am logged in with my Microsoft account, once again I ask, doesn't it seem just a small bit obvious that, since I am the administrator on MY OWN HOME DESKTOP PC that I am having the problem USING AN ADMINISTRATOR ACCOUNT??? - If so, then why would you ask me this?

The obvious answer to each of the "why would you ask me this" questions above is that you didn't read my post. but simply read the header and copied/pasted the usual, standard response to the issue, the same as you all have done on several other posts concerning the same problem. Then once the user replies to the post telling you all basically the same things that I have told you above, they either never receive another reply from you all, or you all re-post the same standard reply all over again, even though your reply has been answered already, or other "amateur" users start replying to the post and also never receive any responses except from other amateur users. So the problem, to the best of knowledge, has NEVER been actually resolved. - SO WHAT DO YOU SAY WE, FOR A CHANGE, ACTUALLY RESOLVE THIS ISSUE THIS TIME AROUND; DOES THAT SOUND LIKE A PLAN???

I don't know about you, but that sounds like an EXCELLENT idea to me!

So what do you say you slow down just a little this time around, take a breath, and actually READ my original post this time, and then respond to that, ok? Thanks.

Dont know if you are still having this problem, I have been trying to set up a scheduled task to run windows defender on a daily basis, I am logged in with my Microsoft account, got a similar error "An error has occurred for task - Error message: The specified account name is not valid".

My solution is to log in to a local account and create your task, one of the settings is run even if not logged in which I have also ticked, from my limited understanding its because your microsoft account has a domain as its an email address and that seems to cause a security problem, using a local account allowed me to create the task

Possible solutions:
Option 1. Go to the Task Scheduler in the Start menu and/or Control Panel, right-click on it and select "Run as Administrator"

Option 2. Run a command prompt "as administrator" and use the Schtasks command-line utility to make changes:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/ff356867.aspx