Shutdownertron v1.2

[powdarrmonkey]

Shutdownertron is a decentralised, fully group policy-controlled, automated shutdown mechanism.

 

Features:

 

• Group policy control over every feature
  
• User abortable if permitted
  
• Runs as a service, even if there is no user logged on
  
• Decentralised (policy is cached in case of network loss)
  
• Customisable display text and warning time
  
• Local override tool to prevent specific machines shutting down
  
• Can shutdown or reboot
  
• MSI agent deployment
  

 

Version 1.2 is available at http://www.powdarrmonkey.net/shutdownertron/

This is a production release. (Requires .NET v2.0)

 

Contents: MSI for deployment by your chosen method; transforms to control installation of the local override tool (by default, installed on demand); group policy template to add to a GPO.

 

Shutdownertron understands group policy inheritance, so you can specify generic options near the top of your units and more specific differences (eg. shutdown time) further down.

 

If you use Shutdownertron (or evaluate it and choose not to), please detail your experiences to shape future releases.

Edited October 14, 2008 by powdarrmonkey

[Quackers]

It looks really good, there is one feature that is missing which with the current electric prices would be handy.

 

Whilst on the logon screen only, if idle for X minutes shutdown.

 

So if you have a suite of PC's just sitting there for 1 period not being used, if nobody wiggles a mouse or presses a key for say 15 minutes shutdown. But only from the logon screen as a teacher might leave the PC on all period to show somthing on the projector.

 

Headteacher said she has had a letter saying to expect 40% increase in energy bills. So this is somthing she would like.

[powdarrmonkey]

I'll have a look at that for next release.

 

Edit: I can't help feeling that this would be better handled by Windows' power options. Standby uses very little power, and means that the machine wakes up much quicker when a user sits down at it. The last thing you want is to have it shut down completely just as a user sits down at the machine.

Edited September 30, 2008 by powdarrmonkey

[HodgeHi]

Does this work when the machines have ben standing so long that the screen goes black?

The reason i ask is i have a script that runs the shutdown -r against all the machines in the suite at 6pm. But if the machines have a black screen then the scripts don't seem to run until you move the mouse or press a button.

[powdarrmonkey]

As long as the machine is just idle and not in standby (eg. you have configured the power options to switch off the monitor but not go to standby) it will shut the machine down, yes.

[HodgeHi]

Cool. Im downloading it right now then. Thanks :D:D

[eean]

As long as the machine is just idle and not in standby (eg. you have configured the power options to switch off the monitor but not go to standby) it will shut the machine down, yes.

Sound's like a cool little app. Not shutting down from standby is a bit of a short-coming though... I made a little MSI that made a scheduled task. In this task 'wake computer up from standby' was selected, so there must be some API call that will do the same. Obviously, mine didn't respond to AD, which is pretty cool feature.

 

[cheesypete]

Appreciate the fact that it probably wasnt written for CC3/CC4 compliancy, but for the benefit of others using RM software, it doesnt seem to work - well certainly not on my clients

 

Get the message "Error 1 reading policy registry key. Is Shutdownertron installed properly"

 

(damn you RM!)

[powdarrmonkey]

@eean: I'm working on little niggles like that, I think the trouble with standby is my event sinks stop getting messages. I'll see if I can find a way of maintaining them without losing standby's power savings too much.

 

@cheesypete: I don't have any CC3 experience at all, sorry. If you've applied the group policy template, you should have a registry key HKLM\Software\Policies\Shutdownertron, and one in HKLM\Software\Shutdownertron with a version value and an override value in. These are the keys it is looking for.

[z4ydi]

it would be nice to have the functionality to save open work to the home drive of the user logged in before shutdown. i.e in a special folder on thier home drive i.e H:\\autosave

[powdarrmonkey]

@z4ydi: Nice idea, but I have no idea what applications you're running amongst the millions of possibilities. I'm also a firm believe in human solutions before technical, and training users to save their work is going to stand them in far better stead in the workplace than blindly doing it for them.

 

The shutdown is not forced (though a future version may allow you force it) so for example Word will halt the process if a document has not been saved, and it'll still be there the next morning.

[z4ydi]

after installing when I try to run the Shutdownertron Configuration from Administrative tools I get a message: "Policy settings have not been applied. Check GPO have refreshed properly".

Is there an installation guide for the software, as I think I might be doing something wrong.

thanks

[powdarrmonkey]

This error means that the group policy settings have not been applied to the machine you're working on. Check that you have a registry key HKLM\Software\Policies\Shutdownertron, if not check that you have applied the policy to the machine in question, and run "gpupdate /force" to ensure it has refreshed its settings.

 

There's currently no install guide other than the release notes, it's in progress (work got in the way )

[z4ydi]

I have installed Shutdownertron on the server and imported the template and configured the settings to shutdown in certain time etc. I applied the GPO to my test machine, but it did not shutdown the PC, I tested the GPO on few different PCs but no joy, when I type gpresult on the client PC it does show that the policy is applied. Please let me know what am I doing wrong and whether there is a more detailed installation manual

[powdarrmonkey]

When you start the service it logs the current settings to the event log (control panel -> administrative tools -> event viewer -> application log). Can you paste this and any other messages it has left?

[z4ydi]

I checked the application log on the server it says:

 

Event Type: Information

Event Source: Shutdownertron

Event Category: None

Event ID: 0

Date: 24/11/2008

Time: 11:26:18

User: N/A

Computer: FBSADMPDC01

Description:

Current settings:

Enabled: False

Hour: 0

Minute: 0

Delay: 60

Message: ''

AllowAbort: True

ShutdownMode: Shutdown

 

For more information, see Help and Support Center at Events and Errors Message Center: Basic Search.

[powdarrmonkey]

Ok those are the default settings if it can't get anything from GP... take a look in the registry at HLKM\Software\Policy\Shutdownertron, what have you got?

 

If you haven't tried it I would upgrade to 1.3, I changed the policy template a bit to make it more flexible later on.

[z4ydi]

I have reinstalled the new version and applied the policy to my test PC again and when I go to the registry of the test PC all the settings are applied, yet the machine wont shut down

[powdarrmonkey]

Can you paste your event log entry again please if it's any different now.

[z4ydi]

I dont get any event log error related to shutdownertron

[powdarrmonkey]

Not even logging its settings as the service starts? in which case the service hasn't started properly, check that it is running as the local system and try starting it manually. If it fails to start check the event log for related Service Control Manager entries, if it does start check for an entry from Shutdownertron to say what it's current settings are.

 

Edit: looking at your screenshot, there's a shutdownertron error logged at 11:53. This is a guess, but the service hasn't been upgraded and then restarted since you updated the policy template. Going between 1.2 and 1.3 the policy format changes slightly, and if you don't use the 1.3 agent it will crash nastily.

[z4ydi]

 

the version installed is 1.3. You can see from the image that there is no entry for Shutdownertron in the registry. but yet my test meachine has the right registry settings applied, posted in my previous post.

[powdarrmonkey]

Well where your previous screenshot of the registry looked correct, it now isn't - the policy isn't being applied to that machine properly. Fix that (try gpupdating it) and then post some event viewer events.