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This is to prevent a PAYG SIM card expiring after 90 days of non-use (UK Vodafone).

If Access Connections had a command line mode giving access to the SMS feature, then with the windows AT command one could do it. But I can't see any such feature documented.

It's obviously possible but would need a custom program written which starts AC and then sends windows messages to it, but that's a lot of work.

Is there some other way?

I am running windowx XP on the X230.

Does it have to be an SMS (Short Message Service) text message? Or will an email do? I ask, since I think it's possible to use the command line to send out an email using some freeware programs (and properly configured mail settings). "sendmail" comes to mind...

I've also just Googled this: send sms from command line windows

and there appears to be several ways you can do this.

edit: Okay, here's what I just tried and it works for me (Windows XP Pro SP3 on an A31p):

1) Create a text file named sendsms.vbs

2) Input the following into that file:

Set objEmail = CreateObject("CDO.Message")
objEmail.From = "<your username>@<domain>"
objEmail.To = "<phone number>@<cellphone text domain>"
objEmail.Textbody = "Test message to keep account alive!"
objEmail.Send

The second line (objEmail.From) specifies a return address in the SMS. You can specify anything here; it does not have to be a valid address. Since you won't be replying to this SMS, it doesn't matter what you use. On line three, use your normal cell phone number (don't think international dialing code is needed) and whatever domain your cell phone provider specifies for sending SMS. For example, I have AT&T and use txt.att.net as the domain name. From looking at the email headers (I sent the same message to my email address), it appears that the message originates here:

Received: from mail pickup service by <my host name> with Microsoft SMTPSVC;

3) Specify "at" command as: at <time> <pathname to\>sendsms.vbs

I had to specify the full pathname to the sendsms.vbs file, even though I executed the AT command from within the same directory as the file. This probably was needed because I stored the .vbs file in a directory that was not in my PATH. BTW, thanks for asking this question as I needed to do something like this at work many months back. I was trying to use the sendmail program to send myself an email when a test program was finished running but it never did work right. It may be due to the way the computer is configured for our network, but using VBS and SMS might do the trick.

Many thanks! I will look into this.

It needs to be an SMS because an email might get sent during say a wifi connection, so would not create a "chargeable event" on the SIM card.

Another method has been suggested: use the AT SMS command(s) to the appropriate COM port (the built-in 3G radio usually appears on a high number like COM15) and that "should just work" Well, it needs a signal, etc.