Shutdown Policy

[dean41]

Hi All,

 

I want to make a shutdown policy to shutdown all computers at the end of the day, Say 9 PM. I would like to give them the option to stop the shutdown.

[ihaveaproblem]

EduGeek Shutdownertron

 

should do it

[6Foot2]

EduGeek Shutdownertron

 

should do it

 

A word of warning about Shutdownertron. Some members of Edugeek have reported that there may be some issues with Windows 7 [i have not found this to be true: I find that it work very well with my Windows 7 workstations]

 

Relevant link: http://www.edugeek.net/forums/windows-7/88129-auto-shutdown-programs-end-day.html

 

Searching the forums for Shutdownertron will give more results that will give more results which have content/opinions that are relevant to the original enquiry.

[sjatkn]

Some of the options that have been mentioned before.

 

psshutdown from SysInternals run from a scheduled task to ensure that machines are turned off at a specific time. I also use the same program from a script which I can run at anytime to turn off or reboot machines.

 

I also have used PowerOff 3.0 from http://users.telenet.be/jbosman/poweroff/poweroff.htm as this also give the ability to schedule a shutdown and have remote access.

[FN-GM]

A word of warning about Shutdownertron. Some members of Edugeek have reported that there may be some issues with Windows 7

 

I can support this

[ricki]

Hi

 

I schedule a task in group policy that shuts the machine down.

 

I think the command was somwthing like shutdown.exe -s -t 30

 

I go mine as a machine schedlue task but this might help. Configure a Scheduled Task Item

 

Richard

[glennda]

I use Fog - It only shuts the machines down if nobody has been logged in for 15 mins - only flaw is it doesn't see logged in via RDP as a session.

[ihaveaproblem]

Shutdownertron never worked correctly for me I only suggest because I know some people do use it fine. I use Impero myself to shut-down computers, and before that a scheduled task.

[witch]

Shutdownertron works perfectly in one school and not so well in the other

[speckytecky]

Impero does the job and sooo much more for us. It's the best things we have bought in a long time.

[cscott]

Instead of shutting them down why not use a combination of sleep & hibernate?

 

We've got all our PC's set to enter sleep mode after 20 minutes of inactivity and then to hibernate after a further 20 minutes of inactivity - once they enter sleep mode they are using very very little power and hibernate is as good as being off.

 

This way you get power savings during the day (i.e. free periods, lunch etc...) the machines take much less time to resume then they do to cold boot, the machines can wake themselves up from hibernation to install windows updates overnight and you can manage it all via Group Policy - no need for 3rd party software

[Davit2005]

Another vote for Shutdownertron here :-). Have had no issues with Windows 7, I have disabled Fast User Switching aswell. Using version 1.3.3214 .

[Mr.Ben]

I give a vote for using a Group Policy Preference to set a scheduled shutdown task.

 

I do that here at 7PM, 9PM and 10PM (Giving 30 minutes notice of the shutdown). I've also put a shortcut to cancel the shutdown on the desktop of staff members.

[edutech4schools]

What is the difference between shutdown.exe -s -t 30 and shutdown.exe -f -s, which was listed on another site.

[andyrite]

shutdown /?

 

-s shutdown

-f force

-t time in seconds before shutdown

[Mr.Ben]

Shutdown has a number of switches:

 

-r (Restart)

-t xx (Shutdown in xx seconds)

-f (Force, Do not allow user to cancel and end all programs)

-m \\Machine_name (remote shutdown a specific machine)

 

or, RTFM if you can't remember them!

 

Edit: Beaten to it!

[kennysarmy]

Instead of shutting them down why not use a combination of sleep & hibernate?

 

We've got all our PC's set to enter sleep mode after 20 minutes of inactivity and then to hibernate after a further 20 minutes of inactivity - once they enter sleep mode they are using very very little power and hibernate is as good as being off.

 

This way you get power savings during the day (i.e. free periods, lunch etc...) the machines take much less time to resume then they do to cold boot, the machines can wake themselves up from hibernation to install windows updates overnight and you can manage it all via Group Policy - no need for 3rd party software

 

I agree

[Chunks_]

Yeah, you can use batch file that you put in a schedule task to shutdown the computers Each night

[caffrey]

Not sure where I got this from but it works most of the time

 

library.vbs - set this to run on a scheduled task, we have different areas to switch off at different times - this is the library one.

user / password is domain admin usually - thats what I use

 

 

On Error Resume Next

Dim oFSO, oTS, sClient, oWindows, oLocator, oConnection, oSys
Dim sUser, sPassword

'set remote credentials
sUser = ""
sPassword = ""

'open list of client names
Set oFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set oTS = oFSO.OpenTextFile("C:\Shutdown\library.txt")

Do Until oTS.AtEndOfStream

'get next client name 
sClient = oTS.ReadLine

'get WMI locator
Set oLocator = CreateObject("WbemScripting.SWbemLocator")

'Connect to remote WMI
Set oConnection = oLocator.ConnectServer(sClient, _
  "root\cimv2", sUser, sPassword)

 'issue shutdown to OS
' 4 = force logoff
' 5 = force shutdown
' 6 = force rebooot 
' 12 = force power off
Set oWindows = oConnection.ExecQuery("Select " & _
  "Name From Win32_OperatingSystem")
For Each oSys In oWindows
  oSys.Win32ShutDown(5)
Next 

Loop

'close the text file
oTS.Close
'WScript.Echo "All done!"

 

 

Then you list the machines in a text file (in this case c:\shutdown\library.txt)

This way you can easily omit machines etc..

 

save this as library.txt

 

SNR-library-1
SNR-library-2
SNR-library-3
SNR-library-7
SNR-library-8
SNR-library-9

[6Foot2]

For those still looking for an answer to this [who have found answers suggested here unsatisfactory] I found this today:

 

Link 1: Dimio's Tools [scroll down to DShutdown]

 

DShutdown is a stand-alone program that allows you to easily shutdown and wake up local or remote PCs, with many specific options.

 

DShutdown supports more than just standard shutdown options, there are options relating to "pure" shutdown (such as the "force after wait" option which causes a forced, but 'clear' shutdown). There are monitoring options that allow you to shutdown a PC after a particular application terminates (useful at the end of compressing several files). There are also options to shutdown a PC when Internet traffic reduces below a particular data-rate (useful to shutdown a PC when it has finished a large download).

 

It is also possible to intercept a shutdown request, initiated by the user or an application, and to then execute the shutdown request with selected options from DShutdown. (For example: to simultaneously shut down all Lan PCs when the server shuts down).

 

DShutdown doesn't force a power-off without logging off and saving settings. DShutdown instead provides a means to log-off, shutdown and safely power-off your PC. Administrators who use roaming profiles will appreciate the benefits of this feature.

 

http://desmond.imageshack.us/Himg515/scaled.php?server=515&filename=dshutdownbydimio.png&res=medium

 

I have not experimented with this myself [as Shutdownertron works well enough for us here]

 

Link 2: How to shutdown remote PCs

 

HTH.

[basicchannel]

Has anyone had any problems with Shutdownertron executing at completely the wrong time on just a single workstation? I've got one workstation where the event logs are telling me Shutdownertron was executed at 09:30 this morning. Inside the log it states the correct hour/minute etc as 18:00.

 

Another time it was shutting down at 16:30 (same computer)

[edutech4schools]

I give a vote for using a Group Policy Preference to set a scheduled shutdown task.

 

I do that here at 7PM, 9PM and 10PM (Giving 30 minutes notice of the shutdown). I've also put a shortcut to cancel the shutdown on the desktop of staff members.

 

Just out of interest what code is used to cancel the shutdown.

[Steve21]

Just out of interest what code is used to cancel the shutdown.

 

shutdown -a

cancel's a timer based shutdown. So assuming some script that lets that run (Or if done via taskmanager, guess something to cancel task)

 

Steve

[Squip]

another vote for Group Policy Prefs Scheduled Task. Always works well for me

[chazzy2501]

You can use CSE Group policy Preferences to deploy Scheduled tasks, so you can use shutdown.exe with switches. You can also tell scheduled tasks to run if a user is logged in or not and if the PC is on battery and even come out of standby to run. Very flexible.

 

This is mine, it runs at 18:30 after the 17:30 wsus auto update.

 

Edited November 27, 2012 by chazzy2501
18:30 not 18:00