Every weekday, at 16:00, I have to call Fedex to turn off my regular pickup, if I don't have any outgoing shipments.

I needed a solution that I could hear anywhere in the office, so I scripted Reminder.bat.

To use Reminder.bat, schedule a task for the days / time that you want. Modify the tasks Run line to contain:

<Drive:>\Folder\Reminder.bat \["Full Path To Audio File"\] \[Number of Seconds\]

Example: C:\util\Reminder.bat "C:\WINNT\Media\Beethoven's 5th Symphony.RMI" 35

If you omit the "Full Path To Audio File" and Number of Seconds parameters, "C:\WINNT\Media\Beethoven's Fur Elise.RMI" is played for 30 seconds. If you only omit the Number of Seconds, your selection is played for up to 30 seconds. 

NOTE: Run the task in the background by using a user account that is not the logged on user or by implementing Windows 2000 tip 4579.

Reminder.bat contains:

@echo off
set music="C:\WINNT\Media\Beethoven's Fur Elise.RMI"
set secs=30
if not \{%1\}
\{\} set music=%1
if not \{%2\}
\{\} set secs=%2
set /a secs=%secs%
set /a secs=%secs% + 1
set secs=%secs%
start /min "C:\Program Files\Windows Media Player\wmplayer.exe" %music%
@ping -n %secs% 127.0.0.1>nul
Close "Windows Media Player*"
exit