More than one issue here: 1. Those dumb s**ts at microsoft removing 'display a message' feature; why bother, it cant take up much space. Anyhow I actually didnt use that before i just set a scheduled task for opening notepad but even thats f'd up now! In XP I would tell it to open up a notepad but now in windows 8 for some reason when i run the task it only opens up the 'open with' dialog and not the notepad. I looked online and there was one post i found with the same issue. I was trying to follow their suggestions but didnt get any further. So any fix for the open dialog issue or another workaround? Id prefer not have to have a 3rd party program open all the time. I tried a cpl and neither did what i want anyhow since i want it to open a reminder then re-remind me every 15-30 mins (i often get sidetracked and forget otherwise ) whereas those 3rd party ones were only letting it do once per day. I just want the simple functionality of the old way i did it in XP back .