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My peak internet download quota is a bit small at the moment, but I have a decent amount of offpeak quota. Unfortunately the offpeak period is from 2am-8am, and I don't really want to stay up that late just to kick off a download. Is is possible to schedule the Diablo 3 download to occur at a certain time?

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Why can't you just leave it running when you go to bed and let it run all night? – Wikwocket May 15 '12 at 5:06
@Wikwocket because that would use up my "peak" quota for the time spent downloading before 2am. In Australia most internet plans only have a certain amount that you can download each month, you pay more each month for higher quotas. My particular plan has separate quotas for 2-8am (offpeak) and 8am-2am (peak). – jwaddell May 15 '12 at 5:15
Is there a way you can have your Internet "turn on" at a set time? You should be able to set it up via the modem... – Gareth Jones May 15 '12 at 5:22

3 Answers

up vote 7 down vote

This is a fairly crude method, but may work.

  1. Create two batch files

    • connect.bat:

      netsh interface set interface name="Local Area Connection" admin=ENABLED

    • and disconnect.bat

      netsh interface set interface name="Local Area Connection" admin=DISABLED

    • n.b., change "Local Area Connection" to whatever connection your internet is going through

  2. Set up a pair of Windows tasks in the "Task Scheduler" (search for it in the start menu)
    • Have one task run connect.bat at 2 AM, and disconnect.bat at 8 AM.
    • You must check "Run with Highest Privileges" otherwise the scripts will do nothing.

  3. Open up the downloader/installer and begin downloading.

  4. Rght click on disconnect.bat and "Run as administrator". This should disable your network adapter, and with it your internet connection. (Verify that the download stops) When Windows automatically runs it's counterpart connect.bat, it will essentially plug you back in.

    • If you need to manually override and connect back, just run the connect.bat file as an admin. You might want to test run this before blindly letting it run overnight.
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You can type ncpa.cpl in the Run prompt (Windows Key + R) to find it out the name of your connection on your computer. – Krazer May 15 '12 at 7:19
up vote 3 down vote

You can use a macro like AutoHotKey to wait a certain time then click the "download" button.
Sleep, 120000
Click

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up vote 1 down vote

You can't schedule the D3 downloader from within the utility itself. However you can use third party software like Netlimiter and similar programs to apply a per-program bandwidth scheduler that can cut off or throttle D3's downloads between given times.

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