XP power management GPO

[MicrodigitUK]

This is really starting to bug me.

 

I am trying to edit XP power management for the buttons on the desktops to make it shutdown instead of standby.

 

So this is what I’ve done.

 

1. Used a Windows 7 workstation to access the Preferences part (new bit with 2008) of AD on my 2003 dc. That worked.

 

2. Set my GPO power settings under user preferences (read that power is user dependant) and in computer settings enabled the loop back in merge mode.

 

3. In same GPO added in the XP client bit as MSI install in computer config, to make preferences work.

 

4. Set various permeations in several combinations in GPO to allow domain users full access to power parts of registry.

 

Now the strange thing is if I log on as a user it doesn’t apply power settings but reverts to some strange ones for the buttons. But run “gpupdate” when logged on and it puts in correct settings in.

 

So why does it put the wrong ones in when a user logs on?

 

I just can’t get my head around it.

[MicrodigitUK]

Whatever I do it just resets the button back to standby now!!!!!!!!!!!!

[MicrodigitUK]

Fixed it with a VB logon script to run gpupdate and made it all start working.

 

Very strange that I have to do this but I think it gets incorrect settings from the default local profile on workstation.

 

So to overwrite the wrong settings it just needed forcing gpupdate after logon to set them back correctly.

[Ambient]

I use EZ GPO here. It allows me to control the power settings of the computers via AD.

 

I've got it set to not allow computer to go into standby. I'm happy with the screensaver to come on, and then the computers get turned off at 7pm...and then back on at 7am

 

Hope this helps.

[Stachelbaer]

The problem I have with EZ GPO is that as soon as a user logs in, the program crashes. Does anyone have a solution to that problem?

[Stuart_C]

I think it might be to do with your step two as when I did it worked fine (ish).

Couple of things, I assume that you have installed the client side extensions so that the XP clients will pick up the preferences.

I have my users and computers in seperate GPO's. I set up the preferences on the PC GPO with the power settings I wanted when the computers were switched on. I then set user preferences om my student and teachers OU's with the power settings I wanted for them and it worked reasonably well. As preferences are applied at startup/login each setting overrode the previous one and it meant that my computers shut down the monitors quickly when the machines were not logged in or the students were logged in and stayed on for a bit longer when the teachers were logged in. I didn't bother with looback mode.

 

The only problem I had was that occasionally XP would just decided it didin't want to update the with the staff preferences. This tended to be random or at best PC specific (certainly only a couple of people ever complained, and it tended to be the same set of 3 people).

[MYK-IT]

To permanently remove the standby option apply the following registry changes:

 

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\ACPI\Parameters]

"Attributes"=dword:00000070

Edited August 4, 2010 by MYK-IT