I need a PHP alternative to Windows Scheduled Tasks

I have concluded that Bill Gates is Satan! Ok, I'm late, but... I have had 26 scheduled tasks that run every hour on the hour every day for eternity to go and run a series of Java files I wrote that connect remotely to a remote server to do remote cleanup of stray XML files, etc.; things I cannot do on the remote machine box itself because it's remote and I don't have permissions were I physically on the box anyway. However, on 7/18 all 26 of my scheduled tasks stopped running; one of which continuously ran for 4 days straight w/o stopping (nor could I manually stop it). I deleted the runaway process and recreated it; now not a single one of my 26 scheduled Win2000 tasks I created using MS-DOS AT commands work (which were working since 7/2). I am now looking into programmatic alternatives. I really could use some ideas that are practical given my situation. I'm thinking PHP since I am very comfortable with it, were it possible within my bizarre Win2000 environment, but I need something that will clean those XML files remotely on a regular basis, it's important for website maintenance. Any help appreciated. Thanx Phil