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## Understanding Run Days

By default, a task is scheduled to run every day indefinitely. You can, however, set up any type of schedule you want for a task. The Scheduling Service dialog box provides several options for defining run days.

Run days
Run days make up a defined set of days or dates on which a task can run. They can be specific dates, a recurring pattern of days, or both.

You can set up a schedule that enables a task to run on certain days each week, certain weeks each month, or certain days on particular weeks of the month. For example, you might want a task to run on the first Monday of every month, the last week of every month, the last Friday of the last week every month, or all of the preceding.

You can also base the run cycle on particular days of the month, for example, by scheduling a task for the first and 15th days. This option allows you to schedule tasks for the last day of each month regardless of the date.

A task can run at regular intervals. This feature is useful, for example, to back up weekly, quarterly, or annual records that are modified every certain number of days.

You can specify explicit dates for the task using a calendar. The task can run on these dates rather than follow a recurring schedule, or the dates can be in addition to a recurring schedule. Once the calendar is displayed, you can select dates in any month of any year.

After configuring a schedule, if you don't want the task to run on certain days falling within the schedule, you can exclude those dates. This option is useful for excluding holidays.

Finally, the Scheduling Service dialog box allows you to combine all available options. For example, you could schedule a task to run on the first and third Thursday of the month, the last day of each month, every 90 days, and on specific dates, such as December 25 and July 4.

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