Automatic Startup and Shutdown Software

[ChristianDavies]

We are looking for a piece of software that can control the start-up and shutdown of PCs via Active Directory. We want to be able to control the times of when they start-up and shutdown and the days that they do it on. We want some kind of Management console or user interface for other technicians to over ride any settings. We would be looking to install this onto our servers. Does anyone know of any software like this on the market? We know there is some group policy settings and there are scripts that can do this but we are looking for a piece of software with an interface.

[ConradJones]

I use a scheduled task added to the machines at startup (via startup script in gpo) to shut them down at 22:00.

 

a program i wrote runs on the server and queries sccm database (could quite easily query ad though) and boots the machines at 6:30

[ChristianDavies]

That might be something ill look at, do you have the script for startup and shutdown that can be added to the GPO?

 

We have a logon.bat script that runs but like you have we need computers to boot up at something like 7am and shutdown around 6pm.

 

Thanks for your reply

[XiJ]

We just run a scheduled batch command on the server that shuts down the remote machines at a given time.

 

Startup might require some more specialist software I guess / although you could set wake on alarm in the bios - you'd probably want an alternative shutdown time for weekends though !

[ConradJones]

its something with the at command, i'll post it tomorrow when i'm, at work

[ChristianDavies]

Brilliant thank you all

[dhicks]

Startup might require some more specialist software I guess / although you could set wake on alarm in the bios

 

Enable wake-on-lan in the bios of your workstations, then you can have a server send out a wake-on-lan signal for each workstation's MAC address at an appropriate time each morning. You could have a script look up workstation names in organisational units in Active Directory, then match those up with workstation names in DHCP to get their MAC addresses.

[XiJ]

Excellent idea - cant believe I missed that - we so it on some of our schools!!

 

Probably wont work with wireless devices though. (Although I notice some tosh a have a wireless wol in the bios)

[ChristianDavies]

Thank you for all of your suggestions, I have managed to find a piece of software that seems to do exactly what I need called PowerMan - PowerMAN PC Power Management Software Technical

[kennysarmy]

We are also looking at PowerMAN - currently running it in monitoring mode...which you do so they can work out your savings, I believe they then tell you how much they want for the software....interesting model

[ChristianDavies]

That's right - they give you a 30 day free trial, however for 14 days of it the software runs in the monitoring mode to collect information and work out your savings. You can then use the software for another 2 weeks to evaluate it, from there they provide you with a quote for the software. I agree it is an interesting model, no way of knowing how much other companies are paying. It can be a little off putting.

[Kellieward]

We have just purchased PowerMAN - the way it worked for us is that we got the full product for about a month. During this time they suggested we used the first week or two to do an audit and then experiment with different power saving techniques. We had a few questions during the process and they seemed to know their stuff. About half way through we got a report explaining the power statistics we had collected and making some suggestions which ultimately were pretty good.

 

The guy we dealt with (Geoff) told us that there was a standard price plus an education discount. He said that the software should pay for itself in less than three months and if this wasn't the case they would make us a sensible offer. As it turned out the pay back period was less than 3 months so this never came up.

[ConradJones]

I wonder what the process is when someone says that they haven't saved them that much in 3 months?

[ConradJones]

Enable wake-on-lan in the bios of your workstations, then you can have a server send out a wake-on-lan signal for each workstation's MAC address at an appropriate time each morning. You could have a script look up workstation names in organisational units in Active Directory, then match those up with workstation names in DHCP to get their MAC addresses.

 

mine pulls a database query from the SCCM Databases for the MACs and pipes that to a wol.exe