TaskForce CO2 - What do you guys think?

[sven]

Howdy,

 

I have been playing around with power management recently, and I have come across "TaskForce CO2" - PC Power Management Software | Auto Shutdown Software | Energy Saving | Cut CO2

 

If I'm honest, I think it's pretty impressive at first glance. I am currently testing it on a couple of computer rooms to see how well it runs. I have tried running scripts and adding each machine into the script, as well as using Shutdownertron but I haven't found anything that seems quite as neat as this yet. I don't mind installing the clients from a console, as it's only the computer rooms that I want to add for now, as they are the rooms we have most problems with people not shutting down.

 

Anyway, does anybody else have experience in using this? Any opinions and suggestions would be gladly welcomed.

 

Sven.

[sven]

I see. I can't see ongoing support as too much of an issue. If it works, then it works. Would you recommend any other product that function like it? I have heard of one called "PowerOut", but I don't seem to be able to find anything about it anywhere.

[DrCheese]

It's okish. It has no MSI deployment which really sucks if you ever reimage a PC as you have to remember to deploy it manually again. They are extremely slow at releasing updates, i.e I was promised one to solve an issue way back in Jan this year, yet it was only released recently.

 

PowerOut was the name of the product under the previous company.

[sven]

Thanks for that! Would you advise staying away then? There really doesn't seem to be much else in the way of power management solutions.

[featured_spectre]

Shutdownertron does the job perfectly fine. Fine it may not have the bells and whistles that TaskForce CO2 and what have you, but you can set machines to shut down at a specific time and thats all you really need

[User3204]

I used to have Shutdownertron on XP, but left it off the Windows 7 image, as it says it doesn't work..

 

I've been getting this sort of software being spammed to me recently, I have tried the TaskforceC02, but it doesn't like my multiple domains...

I've just had this one recently so I was planning to play with it next week in the half term.

[sven]

I used to have Shutdownertron on XP, but left it off the Windows 7 image, as it says it doesn't work..

 

I've been getting this sort of software being spammed to me recently, I have tried the TaskforceC02, but it doesn't like my multiple domains...

I've just had this one recently so I was planning to play with it next week in the half term.

 

Thanks for the suggestion. I will take a look at this today also. I'll let you know how I get on.

[sven]

GarryO,

 

That would be great if you could provide me with that. I'm just trying to look at everything available and weigh up what's going to be best for us.

 

Sven.

[sonofsanta]

We have SpecOps Remote Admin (now called GP Update Professional) which runs a Powershell script as a scheduled task to shut down and wake up our computers each day. Does lots of other handy tricks too, it's a wonderful bit of software what has never given us any trouble.

[featured_spectre]

Infact if you have the entire spec ops suite you have a very powerful system indeed. great imaging, great management etc

[Tedric]

Dont buy it, the original company went bust and just before they did they were offering site licences for life at stupid costs just to try to stay afloat. Some of the software is nice dont get me wrong but as they keep going under and back up etc its difficult to get support if you need it.

 

Where do you (not) get accurate information?

 

I dealt with Visionsoft for several years before it closed in 2009 and happen to know that it ran for more than 19 years. No mean feat given the economic climate in this country. No company runs forever, not even banks!

 

PeachWorx concentrates on TaskForce CO2 (PowerOut, as was). This a straightforward, easy to use application, thats does exactly what the adverts say, namely, it shuts PCs down and wakes them up again.

 

Many of my clients use it and I have no reservations recommending to others. Some of my clients transitioned to TFCO2 from PowerOut and they are equally happy with it.

 

I would be interested to know what your connection with Visionsoft and/or their products was.

[Tedric]

for DrCheese ...

 

You may have missed the option which lets you automatically choose to deploy the TFCO2 remote agent to new PCs. A reimaged PC should appear to the TFC02 console just as if it was a new one.

Edited October 24, 2011 by Tedric

[Tedric]

for User3204

 

Never been a problem for me. Although, I have had to help a couple of clients sort out cross domain permission issues. Once that is sorted, multi-domain administration of TFCO2 is little different to single domain configurations.

 

Also had one client with "smart" routers, a little too "smart" as it turned out. An extra layer of things to configure, but, se la vie.

[Tedric]

for NEPHILIM: Shutdownertron ...

 

Unless you are using Vista or Windows 7

 

Version 1.5 is on the way, apparently, and support for the above is to be included.

[sonic1485]

We purchased this software around Easter time and it has been great for our Windows 7 clients... Sadly not so great for the Windows 10 machines we have rolled out during the summer. The support have sent us a manual fix for this but if anybody finds a way to automate the process or hears of any software updates on the horizon that support Windows 10 I'd love hear about them

[chrispounds]

Hi Sonic, What problems are you having exactly? I have tested it on a couple of our Win10 machines running AU and tested a shutdown scheme, which worked perfectly, only thing we have to do is open some ports to allow WoL.

[Sc00by]

We are currently looking for software that can power manage roughly 800 machines. Something that can give an alert to the end user and give them the option to cancel.

 

Taskforce seems to work well (and at a good price. we were quoted mid 4 figures for PowerMAN!) however on installing it on a server we found that it rewrites folder permissions on top level ProgramData by removing everything and adding in the 'Everyone' group. This doesn't filter properly and we quickly found that other programs we had running on that server soon complained!! - It's not something we would have picked up on when tested on a vanilla machine.

 

Other than that it works well but would be intersted to hear in any alternatives. What we go for must have an option for the end user to cancel a scheduled shutdown which rules out most scripts, psshutdown etc. We have also experimented with scheduled tasks but these have been very unreliable.