Shutting Down computers remotely

[marvin]

Does anyone know of a free software that can be installed on a Windows 2003 server to set a schedule task to shut down computers at night/start them in the morning?

 

Thanks

[Hightower]

http://www.microsoft.com/germany/technet/sysinternals/utilities/psShutdown.mspx

[SpuffMonkey]

This scheduled batch file does it for us

 

echo "Starting PC Shutdown script" > "C:\Winapps\Logoffs\shutdown.log"

 

echo "Starting LimitLogon clearout" >> "C:\Winapps\Logoffs\shutdown.log"

 

"C:\Program Files\LimitLogin\llogincmd.exe" /c

 

echo "Starting PC Shutdown" >> "C:\Winapps\Logoffs\shutdown.log"

 

C:\winapps\logoffs\PSShutdown.exe -c -k @PCList.txt -f -t 30 >> C:\Winapps\Logoffs\shutdown.log

 

 

echo "Completed" >> "C:\Winapps\Logoffs\shutdown.log"

 

You just need psshutdown (free download)

[Friez]

Windows actually comes with a tool for shutting down computers, I'm still amazed at the amount of 3rd party solutions out there

 

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/helpandsupport/learnmore/ballew_commandline.mspx

 

Examples:

 

shutdown -m \\somecomputer -s -t 120 -c "All systems are shutting down, please save your work."

This will shut down the machine after a 120 second countdown with the message supplied. We usually run this to give straggling users a chance to save their stuff before we force them off.

 

shutdown -m \\somecomputer -s -t 1

We simply reduce the time to 1 second if we're pretty sure we want the machines off in next to no time

 

shutdown -m \\somecomputer -r -t 1

Restarts the specified machine immediately.

 

shutdown -m \\somecomputer -a

Abort a shutdown after it has launched (provided you get in on time)

 

Throw some of this into a batch file (say: entire rooms) and you have yourself one powerful offswitch and no additional software needed

 

Of course if you want to do some stuff like locking pc's e.t.c. thats a different kettle of fish (and will need tools as mentioned by others above), but you don't need anything more if you just want to shutdown/restart things.

Edited September 9, 2008 by Friez

[SpuffMonkey]

I thought standard "shutdown" choked if the PC was running a screensaver - which would make it a bit tricky?

[jmcdermott]

I manage to achive this by creating a vb script that executes the windows shutdown comand to shutdown the machines, and a free util called mc-wol to wake them up.

 

shtudown -s -t 01 -m \\'computer name'

mc-wol ma:ca:dd:re:ss

[bizzel]

I wrote a program this week to handle this kind of problem. What we wanted was an automatic way to shut down the whole site but with a few extra requirements, namely:

 

• 100% automatic, no editing lists of computers
  
• Full GUI, no command prompt, no VBS
  
• Exclusion list for admin computers + servers
  
• Must run as a scheduled task
  

 

The coolest feature of the tool is that it's always up-to-date with the computers that need shutting down. On startup, it queries the PackageControl folder and gets a list of all the domain computers from there, no servers in that list either so no danger of shutting them down.

 

Second neat thing, it uses WMI both to do the shutdowns and to check which computers are online before starting the shutdown process. That means no waiting for ages while the command prompt sits there, waiting to timeout.

 

Also, there's a full GUI showing the computers in the shutdown queue and any computers that failed to shutdown.

 

There's no schedule feature, it just runs as a scheduled task. It's RM only at the moment because it depends on the PackageControl folder for its information. If any RM users would find it useful, PM me for a copy.

Edited September 9, 2008 by bizzel

[Heebeejeebee]

I thought standard "shutdown" choked if the PC was running a screensaver - which would make it a bit tricky?

 

Doesn't seem to on ours.

 

HBJB

[bizzel]

I've seen it hang when the screensaver is active. It's not permanent but takes about 30 seconds of just sitting the logon background before it shuts down.

[srochford]

Windows actually comes with a tool for shutting down computers, I'm still amazed at the amount of 3rd party solutions out there

 

Always more than one way to do a job :-)

 

Earler versions of Windows didn't come with shutdown (I think it was first in 2000 but it might not have been there until XP) so other techniques were needed.

 

Using scripts and WMI lets you do things like checking if the machine is switched on and needs switching off; checking the OS so you don't shut down servers and so on.

 

If you want a shutdown at a relatively fixed time each day then you can just schedule a task to run on the local machine at the appropriate time - perhaps changing the time by using a machine startup script.

[DMcCoy]

I schedule beyondexec shutdown (BeyondExec - Spawn Processes or Shutdown Remote Windows NT/2000/XP WorkStations) with the startup script.

 

If you do it with AT (NOT schtasks which can't do interactive properly) then the user gets a popup asking if they want to shutdown and can abort it, popup is also displayed on machines that are not logged in which is nice.

[enjay]

I'm resurrecting this, as our current method of turning computers off (BeyondExec) no longer seems able to touch locked computers.

 

Reading other threads on this, there seems to be some dispute over whether or not PSShutdown can do this in a single pass - what are people's experiences? Also, does PSShutdown offer users the ability to cancel a shutdown if they are still working?

[JJonas]

EduGeek Shutdownertron

 

dont know about locked computers but you can set this up to allow users to stop the shutdown

[powdarrmonkey]

EduGeek Shutdownertron

 

dont know about locked computers but you can set this up to allow users to stop the shutdown

 

If the machine's locked during the warning period, the user will see it when they unlock. If it's still locked when this runs out, the shutdown will *not* take place. One of the new features in the new version is an override for this, so shutdown will be forced even while the desktop is locked.

[gshaw]

I do it with a scheduled task as well but did have some problems with user rights, seems that unless the user is local admin they need "Shut down the system" and "Shut down remote system" rights for shutdown.exe to run properly?

 

Also the scheduled task needed read, read & exec and write rights for it to run

[powdarrmonkey]

I do it with a scheduled task as well but did have some problems with user rights, seems that unless the user is local admin they need "Shut down the system" and "Shut down remote system" rights for shutdown.exe to run properly?

 

Also the scheduled task needed read, read & exec and write rights for it to run

 

Yes, they do. Shutdownertron doesn't, though, because it runs in the system context not a user's, so it neatly gets round both these problems.

[OverWorked]

In addition to what Friez said:-

 

You need two files: the batch file and the list of machines.

 

batch file (just one line):-

 

for /f %%a in (all_computers.txt) do ping -n 1 %%a | find "Reply" && shutdown /s /m \\%%a -t 60

 

text file 'all_computers.txt' (a list of computer names):-

 

ict00
ict01
ict02
ict03
ict04
ict05
ict06
ict07
ict08

 

Run the batch file from a server as a scheduled task with domain admin credentials.

 

Having said that, it doesn't always shut down every computer, and doesn't seem to affect the one Vista machine I have.

[7andY]

I schedule beyondexec shutdown (BeyondExec - Spawn Processes or Shutdown Remote Windows NT/2000/XP WorkStations) with the startup script.

 

If you do it with AT (NOT schtasks which can't do interactive properly) then the user gets a popup asking if they want to shutdown and can abort it, popup is also displayed on machines that are not logged in which is nice.

 

The nice thing about BeyondExec is that you can set it to only shutdown those machines where no user is logged on. I have a schedule to do this at various times between 3:30pm and 10:00pm. The 10:00 pm one does a force shutdown.

[mattx]

PSShutdown Classroom

 

PsShutdown Classroom

[Edu-IT]

PSShutdown Classroom

 

PsShutdown Classroom

Works a treat.

[mattx]

Works a treat.

 

No problem - glad to help.

[enjay]

The nice thing about BeyondExec is that you can set it to only shutdown those machines where no user is logged on.

 

You can? That's cool - what is the command switch to do that?

[timbo343]

or you could use lanview... but it does require you to install the client... but it is a great piece of software... again you can shutdown all the machines that aren't logged on... plus they are about to release a new version..

[7andY]

You can? That's cool - what is the command switch to do that?

 

'Ignore computers in use' switch is -n

 

7&Y

[silver]

Ok - Stupid here

Can someone explain in words of one syllable how to get shutdownertron to be applied to all the computers?

Edited February 23, 2009 by silver