How can I open a URL on a schedule in the default browser?

I would create a batch file containing:

start http://example.com/somePage.html

And point Task Scheduler to that batch file. You can also test that it will work by running the batch file manually.

I've recently found myself trying to solve this exact issue and I have found a few things that can hopefully be of help.

Set up the scheduled task to run the following command:

explorer "http://example.com/somePage.html"

This does the trick without creating an extra file and without a flickering window. I have confirmed that this works on Windows 7 and opens the URL using the default browser.

The same trick however does NOT work in Windows XP. The same command in Windows XP will always use Internet Explorer to open the given URL. The best solution I have found for WIndows XP to date is to set up a scheduled task with

cmd /c start http://example.com/somePage.html

Again, no extra file required, but you do get a brief appearance of a command window.

I have not tested this on Windows Vista or Windows 8

You could make the Windows task manager run a program, and have it point to an HTML file that contains a redirection to the website you want it to open.

1. Open Notepad.
2. Write Javascript redirect.
3. Save as HTML.
4. Set task manager to open that HTML file on your desired schedule.

Here is the Javascript. Let me know if it works.

<script type="text/javascript">
window.location = "http://www.google.com/"
</script>

For some reason the above solutions weren't working for me on Windows Server 2008 so I ended up going with the vbs approach:

This has the added benefit of being able to do a POST with data if required.

Create a vbs file with the following contents:

Call LogEntry()

Sub LogEntry()

'Force the script to finish on an error.
On Error Resume Next

'Declare variables
Dim objRequest
Dim URL

'The URL link.
URL = "https://www.example.com"

Set objRequest = CreateObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP")

'Open the HTTP request and pass the URL to the objRequest object
objRequest.open "GET", URL , false

'Send the HTML Request
objRequest.Send

'Set the object to nothing
Set objRequest = Nothing

End Sub

Credit to this site

There are programs like One Million Clicks that can refresh a web page every x seconds/min/hours. You can even use a list of proxies to simulate real visitors on that page.