I have a site written in php but the site is hosted on an Windows IIS machine... I need something that simulates the *nix cron so it can run one of my scripts every hour to update the DB with the needed information. Does anyone know of a windows cron solution?

Depends on what access you have to the server. For the command line it's the "at" command. If your access is the GUI interface use the "winat" program. (Although that program is not always installed.)

I have physical access to the machine..... I can walk down the hall and get on it

my issue with doing that though is I can't execute a php like that can I? and if I do then it's going to have to open up an IE browser so i'm going to have hundreds of open IE windows on the machine.

The GUI winat is only the interface; it doesn't run when a scheduled job runs. Actually winat and the command line at commands both work on the same list of scheduled jobs. Sorry but I don't know if you can run your script without a window opening; I'm not familiar with PHP running under Windows.

thanks for the help grandpaD since I asked I'll share the answer here with everyone the way grandpaD showed how to run command prompt is what you need to do you can execute php scripts via the command line with the following format..

c:\php\php.exe c:\scriptdir\script.php

I'm not sure at (or winat) will accept an argument. You may have to write a batch file such as script.cmd --

 
c:\php\php.exe c:\scriptdir\script.php
exit

and then call the .cmd file from at.

Back when I used this regularly I always used batch files, mainly because the jobs were more complex, so I don't remember if arguments work. BTW, the exit will make sure the DOS window closes; you may not need it.