Please see my comment to the question. I feel your position here is pretty difficult. If a software engineering is involved, it's really hard to help to not a software engineer (something I deduces from your statement "Unfortunately, I am familiar with Batch Files only").
If you rationally analyze what's wrong with batch files, the central point will probably be: the lack of any reasonably usable debugging. So, I thought that one of the closest approaches would be getting to use Microsoft Windows PowerShell instead:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_PowerShell[
^],
http://microsoft.com/powershell[
^].
The latest version suggests not just usable, but wonderfully convenient debugger.
Still, this is close to programming and will actually give you nearly all power of .NET programming, even though in scripting setting and without the ability to build any assemblies or executable modules. But you could use some sub-set of programming model, that is, same as batch, but also with debugging, and a lot more.
As I said, anything like "every 5 minutes" sounds suspicious to me. Everything which can be understood as
pull technology can be considered as evil, some wasteful and yet inefficient thing. (Please see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pull_technology[
^],
Application 'dashboard' for website accounts[
^]).
Nevertheless, your information is by far not enough for judgement. We could discuss all your problems (not just pull) only if you give us clear idea of your ultimate goals.
—SA
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