Shutdown/Poweroff Workstations at night automatically

[lforbes]

I am quite surprised Microsoft hasn't come up with a reliable piece of
software to power off workstations at night.

I have tried using both shutdown.exe (no ability to cancel) and beyond2exec
(errors out on the server) with no real luck.

I am looking for a reliable but inexpensive way to shut computers off at
night that gives some type of logging.

I have 300 computers and need to make sure they are shutting down without
check each and everyone's event viewer.

I see lots of batch file type utilities but they seem to rely on Scheduled
Tasks to run. If Scheduled Tasks was reliable it would be fine, but
unfortunately it isn't.

I don't care if there is client software required. That is OK. My
organization did force deepfreeze on us for awhile but luckily we were able
to kill it.

What does Microsoft Use? I mean there must be something out there as power
is getting to be an expensive thing.

Thanks
Lara

 

[Thee Chicago Wolf]

Re: Shutdown/Poweroff Workstations at night automatically

>I am quite surprised Microsoft hasn't come up with a reliable piece of
>software to power off workstations at night.
>
>I have tried using both shutdown.exe (no ability to cancel) and beyond2exec
>(errors out on the server) with no real luck.
>
>I am looking for a reliable but inexpensive way to shut computers off at
>night that gives some type of logging.
>
>I have 300 computers and need to make sure they are shutting down without
>check each and everyone's event viewer.
>
>I see lots of batch file type utilities but they seem to rely on Scheduled
>Tasks to run. If Scheduled Tasks was reliable it would be fine, but
>unfortunately it isn't.
>
>I don't care if there is client software required. That is OK. My
>organization did force deepfreeze on us for awhile but luckily we were able
>to kill it.
>
>What does Microsoft Use? I mean there must be something out there as power
>is getting to be an expensive thing.
>
>Thanks
>Lara

They have, it's called shutdown.exe and it's built into Windows. It
shuts down 600+ workstations I manage at 10:10PM every night. Create a
scheduled task for this.

- Thee Chicago Wolf

 

[Meinolf Weber]

Re: Shutdown/Poweroff Workstations at night automatically

Hello lforbes,

We also use shutdown.exe for restarting and shutting down with scheduled
tasks.

Best regards

Meinolf Weber
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> I am quite surprised Microsoft hasn't come up with a reliable piece of
> software to power off workstations at night.
>
> I have tried using both shutdown.exe (no ability to cancel) and
> beyond2exec (errors out on the server) with no real luck.
>
> I am looking for a reliable but inexpensive way to shut computers off
> at night that gives some type of logging.
>
> I have 300 computers and need to make sure they are shutting down
> without check each and everyone's event viewer.
>
> I see lots of batch file type utilities but they seem to rely on
> Scheduled Tasks to run. If Scheduled Tasks was reliable it would be
> fine, but unfortunately it isn't.
>
> I don't care if there is client software required. That is OK. My
> organization did force deepfreeze on us for awhile but luckily we were
> able to kill it.
>
> What does Microsoft Use? I mean there must be something out there as
> power is getting to be an expensive thing.
>
> Thanks
> Lara

 

[lforbes]

Re: Shutdown/Poweroff Workstations at night automatically

Hi,

I have used shutdown.exe. Here are the limitations.

1> It doesn't have the ability to cancel the shutdown. Some machines I have
are not used at 3pm and others are used to 8pm. I don't want to leave them
all on until 9pm or 10pm to guarantee users are off them. I want them to all
shut off at 4pm with the option to cancel for those who are still working. It
also doesn't give the users the chance to save.

2> There is no logging functionality.

3> I have 300 machines so I have to list them ALL individually in a batch
file. If their names change, I have to manually change the batch files. I
cannot just export all their names to a .txt file and pull that file from a
batch file.

4> It relies on scheduled task so if one stops they all stop.

I was using Beyondexec2 and it gave the ability to cancel and also the
ability to load all workstations in a .txt file. However, it keeps creating
multiple system errors on my server and is filling up the event viewer. It
also has no logging functions.

Someone recommended psshutdown which is a sysinternals which has the ability
to cancel by user and also pull from a txt file. It has no logging though and
is scheduled task driven also.


"Thee Chicago Wolf" wrote:

> >I am quite surprised Microsoft hasn't come up with a reliable piece of
> >software to power off workstations at night.
> >
> >I have tried using both shutdown.exe (no ability to cancel) and beyond2exec
> >(errors out on the server) with no real luck.
> >
> >I am looking for a reliable but inexpensive way to shut computers off at
> >night that gives some type of logging.
> >
> >I have 300 computers and need to make sure they are shutting down without
> >check each and everyone's event viewer.
> >
> >I see lots of batch file type utilities but they seem to rely on Scheduled
> >Tasks to run. If Scheduled Tasks was reliable it would be fine, but
> >unfortunately it isn't.
> >
> >I don't care if there is client software required. That is OK. My
> >organization did force deepfreeze on us for awhile but luckily we were able
> >to kill it.
> >
> >What does Microsoft Use? I mean there must be something out there as power
> >is getting to be an expensive thing.
> >
> >Thanks
> >Lara
>
> They have, it's called shutdown.exe and it's built into Windows. It
> shuts down 600+ workstations I manage at 10:10PM every night. Create a
> scheduled task for this.
>
> - Thee Chicago Wolf
>

 

[Newell White]

Re: Shutdown/Poweroff Workstations at night automatically

"lforbes" wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I have used shutdown.exe. Here are the limitations.
>
> 1> It doesn't have the ability to cancel the shutdown. Some machines I have
> are not used at 3pm and others are used to 8pm. I don't want to leave them
> all on until 9pm or 10pm to guarantee users are off them. I want them to all
> shut off at 4pm with the option to cancel for those who are still working. It
> also doesn't give the users the chance to save.
>
> 2> There is no logging functionality.
>
> 3> I have 300 machines so I have to list them ALL individually in a batch
> file. If their names change, I have to manually change the batch files. I
> cannot just export all their names to a .txt file and pull that file from a
> batch file.
>
> 4> It relies on scheduled task so if one stops they all stop.
>
> I was using Beyondexec2 and it gave the ability to cancel and also the
> ability to load all workstations in a .txt file. However, it keeps creating
> multiple system errors on my server and is filling up the event viewer. It
> also has no logging functions.
>
> Someone recommended psshutdown which is a sysinternals which has the ability
> to cancel by user and also pull from a txt file. It has no logging though and
> is scheduled task driven also.
>
>
> "Thee Chicago Wolf" wrote:
>
> > >I am quite surprised Microsoft hasn't come up with a reliable piece of
> > >software to power off workstations at night.
> > >
> > >I have tried using both shutdown.exe (no ability to cancel) and beyond2exec
> > >(errors out on the server) with no real luck.
> > >
> > >I am looking for a reliable but inexpensive way to shut computers off at
> > >night that gives some type of logging.
> > >
> > >I have 300 computers and need to make sure they are shutting down without
> > >check each and everyone's event viewer.
> > >
> > >I see lots of batch file type utilities but they seem to rely on Scheduled
> > >Tasks to run. If Scheduled Tasks was reliable it would be fine, but
> > >unfortunately it isn't.
> > >
> > >I don't care if there is client software required. That is OK. My
> > >organization did force deepfreeze on us for awhile but luckily we were able
> > >to kill it.
> > >
> > >What does Microsoft Use? I mean there must be something out there as power
> > >is getting to be an expensive thing.
> > >
> > >Thanks
> > >Lara
> >
Why not install a batch file on each workstation which runs at 16:00, 18:00,
etc, which creates a flag-file, then invites user to cancel. If you get a
reply, delete the flag-file, otherwise terminate the scheduled task after 15
mins.

Now another batch file scheduled for 16:20, 18:20,... checks for the
flag-file.
If it exists, delete it, write to your log file, and shut down.

> 4> It relies on scheduled task so if one stops they all stop.
Can you elaborate this for my benefit?
--
Regards,
Newell White

 

[Thee Chicago Wolf]

Re: Shutdown/Poweroff Workstations at night automatically

>I have used shutdown.exe. Here are the limitations.
>
>1> It doesn't have the ability to cancel the shutdown. Some machines I have
>are not used at 3pm and others are used to 8pm. I don't want to leave them
>all on until 9pm or 10pm to guarantee users are off them. I want them to all
>shut off at 4pm with the option to cancel for those who are still working. It
>also doesn't give the users the chance to save.

I supposed if you created a simple batch file on the user desktop that
ran shutdown -a, it would abort a shutdown but this requires you to
educate your users.

Well, shutdown does in fact give you the option to use certain
switches and you can customize a message to say "This machine is
shutting down. If you want to cancel the shutdown, run the Abort
Shutdown on your desktop." As an example, I use the following:
shutdown.exe -s -t 60 -c "This computer is shutting down for the
night. Goodbye!" -t specifies time in seconds, -c is a message that
appears on the screen.

Additionally, there's no reason you can't create multiple shutdown
tasks. One could be the final shutdown task set at 9PM which, if the
user had canceled the earlier shutdown, it might be assumed they will
not be using the machine later on and that final shutdown will take
care of it for you.

All this could be managed via AD much better than scheduled tasks.

>2> There is no logging functionality.

What's to log?

>3> I have 300 machines so I have to list them ALL individually in a batch
>file. If their names change, I have to manually change the batch files. I
>cannot just export all their names to a .txt file and pull that file from a
>batch file.

I'm not sure what the scope is of what you're trying to do but this
seems outside the scope of getting a machine to shutdown for the
night.

>4> It relies on scheduled task so if one stops they all stop.

Again, you can create multiple shutdown tasks and you can change the
properties of the scheduled task to stop trying after x amount of
time.

>I was using Beyondexec2 and it gave the ability to cancel and also the
>ability to load all workstations in a .txt file. However, it keeps creating
>multiple system errors on my server and is filling up the event viewer. It
>also has no logging functions.
>
>Someone recommended psshutdown which is a sysinternals which has the ability
>to cancel by user and also pull from a txt file. It has no logging though and
>is scheduled task driven also.

psshutdown isn't a bad option either since you can use the -c switch
to allow a cancel by the user. Might be your best shot. You can likely
use it in tandem with the built in shutdown where during the day you
can use the psshutdown for the purposes of being canceled and
shutdown.exe for end-of-day shutdown.

Any other shutdown utilities out there are not free but may do logging
so you'd have to research it on your own.

- Thee Chicago Wolf

 

[lforbes]

Re: Shutdown/Poweroff Workstations at night automatically

> I supposed if you created a simple batch file on the user desktop that
> ran shutdown -a, it would abort a shutdown but this requires you to
> educate your users.

Yeah, not really an option as I have about 2400 of them.

> Additionally, there's no reason you can't create multiple shutdown
> tasks. One could be the final shutdown task set at 9PM which, if the
> user had canceled the earlier shutdown, it might be assumed they will
> not be using the machine later on and that final shutdown will take
> care of it for you.

Yes, I have that already.

> All this could be managed via AD much better than scheduled tasks.

How do you get AD to run a batch file at a certain time? Please let me know.
I have been using AD and GP for 8 years now and have all types of scripts but
none that are time-based.

>
> >2> There is no logging functionality.
>
> What's to log?

We need confirmation for our monitoring department that the machines are
indeed shutting down, that they didn't error out etc.

>
> >3> I have 300 machines so I have to list them ALL individually in a batch
> >file. If their names change, I have to manually change the batch files. I
> >cannot just export all their names to a .txt file and pull that file from a
> >batch file.
>
> I'm not sure what the scope is of what you're trying to do but this
> seems outside the scope of getting a machine to shutdown for the
> night.

In order to use shutdown.exe you have to list all the machine names in the
batch file correct? With psshutdown it lets you do just one line of command
in the batch file that references a .txt file where all the computer names
reside. It is far easier to just do a list with all the computer names than a
batch file with 300 lines of C:\shutdown.exe /s /m \\computer1 /t 60 /f

>
> >4> It relies on scheduled task so if one stops they all stop.
>
> Again, you can create multiple shutdown tasks and you can change the
> properties of the scheduled task to stop trying after x amount of
> time.

I have had issues with a scheduled task hanging and therefore all the tasks
scheduled after it did not complete as planned.

> Any other shutdown utilities out there are not free but may do logging
> so you'd have to research it on your own.

That is why I posted it here. I figured there must be a solution.

 

[Jason A Ash]

Re: Shutdown/Poweroff Workstations at night automatically

Having seen most of the suggestions here, one option, if you don't mind
some scripting, would be to look into using AutoIT to create a script,
possibly using either shutdown.exe or psshutdown. Set the script to pop
up a message box, with a countdown timer, if a user is sitting at the
PC, and wants to prevent the shutdown, the click "cancel" otherwise, the
PC gets shutdown.

I've used AutoIT to shutdown a batch of machines (~16-18), although
without the cancel option. All I have it do is get the list of PCs via
a net view (you might want to find a more "elegant" solution), write
that to a file, then read through the file, shutting down the PCs via
psshutdown. The PCs in question are not on a domain, so querying AD or
DNS isn't an option.

www.autoit.com

Just a thought.
Jason A.

lforbes wrote:
> I am quite surprised Microsoft hasn't come up with a reliable piece of
> software to power off workstations at night.
>
> I have tried using both shutdown.exe (no ability to cancel) and beyond2exec
> (errors out on the server) with no real luck.
>
> I am looking for a reliable but inexpensive way to shut computers off at
> night that gives some type of logging.
>
> I have 300 computers and need to make sure they are shutting down without
> check each and everyone's event viewer.
>
> I see lots of batch file type utilities but they seem to rely on Scheduled
> Tasks to run. If Scheduled Tasks was reliable it would be fine, but
> unfortunately it isn't.
>
> I don't care if there is client software required. That is OK. My
> organization did force deepfreeze on us for awhile but luckily we were able
> to kill it.
>
> What does Microsoft Use? I mean there must be something out there as power
> is getting to be an expensive thing.
>
> Thanks
> Lara