Diplay Message to Logged On Users

[zwilliams]

Today we had to restart our main server due an ongoing issues which were affecting the networked printers and photocopiers on that server. We sent an email to let people know, however we'd like a way of sending a pop up message to all users who are logged on to the system. We briefly looked at msg in command prompt, however we could only seem to message users logged in to a server/pc

Any suggestions on how we can message all logged on users?

Thanks!

[Ergo]

I am not aware of any service which crosses over platforms (ie would include MacOS, etc) natively, but if you have some classroom management software such as Impero that may have a messaging function which you could use?

Dave

[themightymrp]

We recently tried "LAN Messenger" which on paper did exactly what you want. However it work at all well, maybe on 15 users showed up as connected

[mattx]

Net Send

'nuff said.

[themightymrp]

You tried net send on Windows 7? Doesnt exist!!!

[mattx]

You tried net send on Windows 7? Doesnt exist!!!

msg.exe then.

[themightymrp]

See first post. Msg also does not work if you have any XP clients

[mattx]

See first post. Msg also does not work if you have any XP clients

Use a mix of both them. Both are easily scriptable.

[zwilliams]

Thanks for your help - we had a webinar with Impero which looked great but we'll mull over the idea as it has a great deal of functionality. For what we need we would be more than happy using msg and net send but we couldn't seem to work out a way of sending msg to all users logged in to the domain. Any ideas on how to do this?

[mattx]

A net messenger script for Windows 7/2008

[fairm010]

Just implemented mattx's linked script, works flawlessly once you've deployed the registry key to the network.

Thanks!

[zwilliams]

Thanks for the script - it works which is great however it takes a ling time to message all of the users - I sent out a test message at 2:10pm and they're still churning out to PCs Is there a quicker way that we can alert people of events such as the server being switched off in 30 minutes? Thanks, Zach.

[enjay]

We had System Messenger from Flo on our network, until we went to 64-bit S2008R2 - so long as you don't have that OS version, you should be okay. Really nice tool - there is a client app running on each PC, and you write messages as text files then save them in a specific folder on the server. You can send messages to all users, a specific PC or a specific AD group. Messages are displayed immediately if already logged in, and again at each logon.

[enjay]

The limitation of Net Send and also the MSG utility is that people have to be logged in at the time you send the message; I would rather have something which pops up when people log in saying "the printer in this room isn't working" or "SIMS will be unavailable from 4pm".

[zwilliams]

True - However we want to be able to message users that are already logged on to let them know to save their work etc. We could set a log on message at the beginning of the day as well if there was planned maintanence. Have you got a web link for System Messenger? Couldn't seem to find it. Cheers.