nobleguy

Try enabling the PowerMAN Policy Enforcement settings. These solved this problem for us. We tried GPO and GPP (and lots of other stuff too) but in the end PowerMAN did the trick for us. Apparently the inconsistency is because applications can interfere with the power management timers. I've heard several suppliers refer to this as "PC insomnia". The manual says that the enforcement feature applies an additional "grace" period before overriding this. Also, did you try looking in the PowerMAN reports? These show the periods where the PCs were prevented from power managing. This was a real eye-opener for us. It's amazing how much time applications and Windows spend fighting over this. When the enforcement widget was turned on this improved lots.

PowerMAN does this and a lot more.

Another vote for Data Synergy's PowerMAN. It worked a treat for us and has been considerably more straight forward and reliable than the various GP, GPP, script hacks we tried before. We tried several packages but eventually settled on this one because of the reporting and the support. The result was well worth it and it has now paid for itself many times over.

We solved this problem with Data Synergy's PrintMAN tool. This lets us configure the default printer via GPO per workstation using wildcards for the printer names. We tried both logon scripts and the GPP approach but the results were pretty hit and miss. It was dead simple to setup and I wish we'd found it earlier.

PrintMAN lets you assign the default printer via policy. There is only one default printer per policy but this isn't really a problem for us because you can use wild cards to specify the printer name and it will find the best match. If you need a list of printers I would suggest it to Data Synergy. When we made a suggestion they came back a few days later with a free update accommodate us.

We solved this problem with Data Synergy's PrintMAN tool. This lets us configure the default printer via GPO per workstation. We tried both logon scripts and the GPP approach but the results were pretty hit and miss. They offer a discounted price for schools and were really helpful when we suggested a new feature to remove non-default printers.

We solved this problem with Data Synergy's PrintMAN tool. This let's us configure the default printer via GPO per workstation. We tried both logon scripts and the GPP approach but the results were pretty hit and miss. They offer a discounted price for schools.

We went through this pain barrier a few years ago. We spent ages trying to get EZ-GPO to work but the results were pretty inconsistent and it doesn't support Vista or later. In the end we've settled on Data Synergy's PowerMAN. This lets us push power policies out to each machine and each user. The bits I liked most were that we could setup a different policy for when nobody is logged on and have some cool reports to show it was working. This made a huge difference to our power management project which we worked out paid for itself in about 3 months. There is a page on their website comparing with EZ-GPO and Windows alone: PowerMAN PC Power Management Software Technical We found the PowerMAN technical support great and have recently bought their WakeMyPC product for remote access.

After trying almost every product on the market we settled on Data Synergy's PowerMAN. Their ever helpful support team was the big factor that won us over. I've rarely dealt with a product that seems so well supported. The software is similar to some of the competition we tried but unlike many it just works! The reporting is a pretty useful feature at the start to see what's going on but the bit I like most is that we have been able to setup a policy for when nobody is logged on. This has made the biggest difference to our power management in the daytime.

We tried this and with similar problem results. The issue seems to be that XP power management is split between HKU and HKLM. Power management only seems to work if a matching pair of policies are found which causes trouble with roaming user profiles. In the end we've settled on Data Synergy PowerMAN. This lets us push power policies out to each machine and each user. The bit I like most is that we have been able to setup a policy for when nobody is logged on. This has made the biggest difference to our power management. I found Wikipedia to be quite a good reference on the problem. It explains why Power Management works the way it does (or not): Green computing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The v5.2 version of PowerMAN supports multiple policies for different times per day. It has been a release candidate for a while but isn't on their website. I've got a copy and seems to work very well. The software is managed using an ADM template in Group Policy. You only need to install the server software if you want to run the reporting. Some resellers (like Ergo) offer this as a hosted system which means you don't need to get your hands dirty with the reporting side.

Have a look at PowerMAN. It lets you schedule shutdown and also sleep etc. You can configure it with group policy and it's got a cool reporting feature. Sorry, it isn't free but I think they do some good school discounts.