Shutdown GPO not working - any ideas?

[SteveB_NI]

Hi all, I'm hoping someone can help me shed some light on this issue I'm currently having with my remote shut down tasks (Win 2008R2 Server, Win 7 clients). Thanks in advance, it's weird how it worked (seemingly) for several days when first set up then no longer works now.

 

I currently have a Group Policy set at Room level on the Active Directory. This has the following properties:

 

Computer Configuration > Policies > Admin Templates > System > Power Management > Sleep Settings:

Hibernate - Disabled

System Sleep Time out (seconds) - 4294967295

Unattended Sleep Time out - Enabled

Unattended Sleep Time out (seconds) - 4294967295

Turn off hybrid sleep (plugged in) - Enabled

 

Then some display settings (turn off display - enabled, seconds: 3600)

 

 

 

Shut down preferences:

Computer configuration > Preferences > Control panel settings > Scheduled tasks > Scheduled task

 

Name: Shutdown 5pm

Author: Servername\administrator

UserID: NT Authority\System (I tried administrator here but it didn't work either)

Run with highest privileges: Highest Available

Hidden: no

Configure for: 1.2

Enabled: Yes

 

Triggers:

1. Daily - Repeat task every 1 hour for a duration of 12 hours

Stop all running tasks at end of repetition duration: no

Activate: 22/07/16 17:00

Enabled: yes

Recur every 1 days

 

Actions:

1. Start a program: Program/script - C:\Windows\System32\shutdown.exe

Arguments: /s /t 90 /d p:04:01

 

Settings:

Start task only if system is idle for 10mins

Wait for idle for 15mins

Stop if computer ceased to be idle: Yes

Restart if idle state resumes: Yes

Start task only if computer is on AC power: No

Stop if computer switched to battery power: No

Wake the computer to run this task: Yes

Allow task to run on demand: Yes

If the running task does not end when requested force it to stop: Yes

If the task is already running then the following rule applies: IgnoreNew

[win]

You can try changing the arguments as a test. Mine are basic but it works: /f /s /t 30

[SteveB_NI]

Thanks - I tried that but unfortunately still no success, computers remained switched on overnight.

 

Very strange... wonder if it's to do with the required user ID I have selected?

[simpsonj]

I've got the exact same setup, except mine is using a domain account. But, reading another thread, it's bad security to use a domain account as the username and password is sent out in plain text when in a GPP apparently... Best bet would be to find the minimum security requirements to run the command, and create an account purely for this purpose.

[computer_expert]

I've got the exact same setup, except mine is using a domain account. But, reading another thread, it's bad security to use a domain account as the username and password is sent out in plain text when in a GPP apparently... Best bet would be to find the minimum security requirements to run the command, and create an account purely for this purpose.

 

Microsoft removed GPP passwords with an update a few years ago: https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/kb/2962486

 

You can create a domain account and give it the ability to shutdown machines and use a powershell script (or batch script if you prefer) to trigger the shutdown process.

[timbo343]

We have it working on student machines.. Here's our settings

 

[Koldov]

Here is ours for the ICT suite.

 

There are some extra settings because I like to shut them down nice and early, so I have idle settings in case somebody is using them later than the shutdown time.

 

It doesn't always work for all of them all the time because of that. I seem to remember there was a network connection setting I needed (use any connection) and I had to take out the 'run as soon as possible' and 'if the task fails' on the settings tab as it missed one night and then promptly shut down the whole suite the next morning just after a class had logged on...

 

So ours is a little hit and miss, but works ok most of the time which is better than nothing...

 

[Julian]

Do you have a way to do a shutdown and install any pending windows updates?