This might be a long shot but is it possible to completely disable the Task Scheduler in v6 so that it is not called every 60 seconds? I understand this will prevent scheduled publishing from taking place but that is not needed in this case.

The reason for the request is as a short term fix due to an increasing number of errors being logged in a production site that cannot be immediately upgraded, the logs are being flooded with exceptions like this:

2015-10-27 02:58:16,995 [35] ERROR Umbraco.Web.Scheduling.ScheduledPublishing [(null)] - [Thread 35] An error occurred with the scheduled publishing

System.Net.WebException: The operation has timed out
   at System.Net.WebClient.UploadDataInternal(Uri address, String method, Byte[] data, WebRequest& request)
   at System.Net.WebClient.UploadString(Uri address, String method, String data)
   at Umbraco.Web.Scheduling.ScheduledPublishing.Start(ApplicationContext appContext)

Thanks, Simon