Shutdown Policy

[Mr.Ben]

Shutdown has a number of switches:

-r (Restart)
-t xx (Shutdown in xx seconds)
-f (Force, Do not allow user to cancel and end all programs)
-m \\Machine_name (remote shutdown a specific machine)

or, RTFM if you can't remember them!

Edit: Beaten to it!

[kennysarmy]

Instead of shutting them down why not use a combination of sleep & hibernate?

We've got all our PC's set to enter sleep mode after 20 minutes of inactivity and then to hibernate after a further 20 minutes of inactivity - once they enter sleep mode they are using very very little power and hibernate is as good as being off.

This way you get power savings during the day (i.e. free periods, lunch etc...) the machines take much less time to resume then they do to cold boot, the machines can wake themselves up from hibernation to install windows updates overnight and you can manage it all via Group Policy - no need for 3rd party software

I agree

[Chunks_]

Yeah, you can use batch file that you put in a schedule task to shutdown the computers Each night

[caffrey]

Not sure where I got this from but it works most of the time

library.vbs - set this to run on a scheduled task, we have different areas to switch off at different times - this is the library one.
user / password is domain admin usually - thats what I use

On Error Resume Next

Dim oFSO, oTS, sClient, oWindows, oLocator, oConnection, oSys
Dim sUser, sPassword

'set remote credentials
sUser = ""
sPassword = ""

'open list of client names
Set oFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set oTS = oFSO.OpenTextFile("C:\Shutdown\library.txt")

Do Until oTS.AtEndOfStream
 
 'get next client name 
 sClient = oTS.ReadLine

 'get WMI locator
 Set oLocator = CreateObject("WbemScripting.SWbemLocator")

 'Connect to remote WMI
 Set oConnection = oLocator.ConnectServer(sClient, _
   "root\cimv2", sUser, sPassword)

  'issue shutdown to OS
 ' 4 = force logoff
 ' 5 = force shutdown
 ' 6 = force rebooot 
 ' 12 = force power off
 Set oWindows = oConnection.ExecQuery("Select " & _
   "Name From Win32_OperatingSystem")
 For Each oSys In oWindows
   oSys.Win32ShutDown(5)
 Next 

Loop

'close the text file
oTS.Close
'WScript.Echo "All done!"

Then you list the machines in a text file (in this case c:\shutdown\library.txt)
This way you can easily omit machines etc..

save this as library.txt

SNR-library-1
SNR-library-2
SNR-library-3
SNR-library-7
SNR-library-8
SNR-library-9

[DaveP]

For those still looking for an answer to this [who have found answers suggested here unsatisfactory] I found this today:

Link 1: Dimio's Tools [Scroll down to DShutdown]

DShutdown is a stand-alone program that allows you to easily shutdown and wake up local or remote PCs, with many specific options.

DShutdown supports more than just standard shutdown options, there are options relating to "pure" shutdown (such as the "force after wait" option which causes a forced, but 'clear' shutdown). There are monitoring options that allow you to shutdown a PC after a particular application terminates (useful at the end of compressing several files). There are also options to shutdown a PC when Internet traffic reduces below a particular data-rate (useful to shutdown a PC when it has finished a large download).

It is also possible to intercept a shutdown request, initiated by the user or an application, and to then execute the shutdown request with selected options from DShutdown. (For example: to simultaneously shut down all Lan PCs when the server shuts down).

DShutdown doesn't force a power-off without logging off and saving settings. DShutdown instead provides a means to log-off, shutdown and safely power-off your PC. Administrators who use roaming profiles will appreciate the benefits of this feature.

I have not experimented with this myself [as Shutdownertron works well enough for us here]

Link 2: How to shutdown remote PCs

HTH.

[basicchannel]

Has anyone had any problems with Shutdownertron executing at completely the wrong time on just a single workstation? I've got one workstation where the event logs are telling me Shutdownertron was executed at 09:30 this morning. Inside the log it states the correct hour/minute etc as 18:00.

Another time it was shutting down at 16:30 (same computer)