My company has a dedicated machine (old pentium) that runs a dedicated VFP application that automatically runs programs. It reads a dbf that contains a list of programs to run, where the program is located, and what specific trigger file to look for to kick off the process. It also has the ability to run an application at a specific time. that looks every 5 seconds for that specific trigger file, and it deletes it immediately when found and then starts the corresponding application.

Another way is to use Windows' scheduled task to automatically start the application and then that application looks for a specific file, time or some sort of condition to know whether it should run. Otherwise it shuts down immediately.