Software to shut down PC's?

[Geoff]

Netman's suggestion(s) will work fine then. Just ensure the machines don't get turned off at the breaker switch/power socket.

[_Bat_]

I found a couple of machines were in standby mode, therefore they would not shut down when asked.

I had the same problem. See my post above and attached there is a MSI file. It installs a windows task to run psshutdown. The windows task wakes the computer up to run. It's currently set to 6pm (so long as the computer hasn't been used for the past 15 minutes). To change it you'll need to install it, change the time on the task in task scheduler then update the file in the msi, using any msi editor.

Thanks eean. I will actually have a look at this as it seems like a very good method. The only reason I didn't before is that I know nothing about MSIs... I have only been working in IT since march after coming out of college and i'm still learning . My network manager literally told me they are used for deploying software over the network, but I have no idea how or how to edit them. Are there any tutorials anyone knows of that I can follow?

[Geoff]

MAKEMSI has an expansive help file on the subject.

http://users.cyberone.com.au/dbareis/makemsi.htm

[_Bat_]

Okay, tried eean's way but failed miserably. I just can't understand MSI's very well .

Okay, so back to stage one. I am determined to do this one way or another.

It's just this stupid standby issue... the script I made works 100% perfectly (I was impressed with how flexible and smooth it was) APART from when the computer is in standby. Why can't microsoft make a setting that does what it says, no more, no less? No matter what I do the computers still manage to end up in standby

I cannot get wake on lan to work, no matter what I do. I don't even need these 'magic packets' because I don't really want the computers going into standby at all, so I don't care if they wake up randomly. I keep reading on the net that I might have to make a hardware adjustment to the NICs...

[eean]

If you like, I'll see if I can make you a new msi, just tell me:
What time do you want the computer to switch off?
What message would you like it to display?
How long would you like the message for display for?
Do you want a cancel option?
How long would you like the computer to have been idle for before initiating the shutdown message? (mine waits 15 minutes before popping the message up)

[_Bat_]

If you like, I'll see if I can make you a new msi, just tell me:
What time do you want the computer to switch off?
What message would you like it to display?
How long would you like the message for display for?
Do you want a cancel option?
How long would you like the computer to have been idle for before initiating the shutdown message? (mine waits 15 minutes before popping the message up)

Hi eean, sorry about the (very) late response, been busy with other jobs and have only just got back around to focusing on this.

Thanks for the offer, but thinking about it, your current MSI settings are perfect. I have since figured out how to deploy MSIs over the network as well.

I had have one remaining question... will this task work on both win2k and win xp? We have both in our network. I seem to remember that the schtasks is a winxp only thing. Will this cause trouble with the MSI?

Thanks a lot for your help.

[eean]

Yes, unfortunately Schtasks IS only available on xp. The installer uses schtasks to set the permissions on the task to nt authority/system. You can't even install schtasks on the 2000 system first because it will come up with an error message. If you really want it, there are some instructions here about how to edit the exe to make it run on 2k.
You could possibly save the credentials of a network admin in the task - you'd need to test it. Also, I reckon that the msi will install the task and the file to c:\windows and won't handle c:\winnt.
Basically, all a bit of a pain! Sorry.

[chrbb]

Apologies for starting this topic again, do these scripts work if the workstation is logged off, I can't seem to get anything to work and shutdown the computers when they are logged off.

[sahmeepee]

Apologies for starting this topic again, do these scripts work if the workstation is logged off, I can't seem to get anything to work and shutdown the computers when they are logged off.

I can't speak for the other methods, but I use the builtin shutdown command to remotely shut down computer suites. It doesn't have any problem with computers being logged off at the time.

[_Bat_]

I had no problem getting the workstations to shutdown using psshutdown or beyondexec (I think thats what it was called) when they were logged off. The only trouble I had (and am still having) is when they are in standby. The issue I had is that most of the network is windows 2000 and therefore half the tools won't work as they were designed for XP.

[johnie65]

We had the following script wrote for shuting down our machines, feel free to alter it to your own computers, it work fine with XP machines

[fooby]

In a startup script (on our image that is cloned / or in a group policy startup script)

REM Delete all tasks (not needed, butin case some evil person already has)
schtasks /delete /tn * /f 

REM Create a task for this computer to shut itself down at 6pm
schtasks /create /sc daily /st 18:00:00 /tn "Shutdown at 1800" /tr "shutdown -s -t 60 -c \"This computer is scheduled to automatically shutdown at this time.          You have 60 seconds to save all your work and logoff.\"" /ru system

This way theres no "I need a list of pc's" or "use this tool just search google all day" these are all in windows already and just need to be run once per machine - or placed carefully in a startup script. (Note, this is used on WinXP clients, with 2000 YMMV)

fooby

[_Bat_]

In a startup script (on our image that is cloned / or in a group policy startup script)

REM Delete all tasks (not needed, butin case some evil person already has)
schtasks /delete /tn * /f 

REM Create a task for this computer to shut itself down at 6pm
schtasks /create /sc daily /st 18:00:00 /tn "Shutdown at 1800" /tr "shutdown -s -t 60 -c \"This computer is scheduled to automatically shutdown at this time.          You have 60 seconds to save all your work and logoff.\"" /ru system

This way theres no "I need a list of pc's" or "use this tool just search google all day" these are all in windows already and just need to be run once per machine - or placed carefully in a startup script. (Note, this is used on WinXP clients, with 2000 YMMV)

fooby

Yeah, this won't work for win 2000 as it doesn't come with schtasks.exe. I was -very- tempted at one point just to rip off a hacked version of schtasks.exe from an XP machine and stick it on the 2000 machines via a startup script. The only reason I didn't was because I believe it is most likely illegal to do so.

[Midget]

why would it be illegal?

[_Bat_]

why would it be illegal?

I don't know - I just assumed it would be. Its not a file that comes with windows 2000 so wouldn't it be against the license agreement to copy the file from windows XP to all the 2000 machines? I know its only a minor thing, but where do you draw the line?