Automatically shut down machines - centrally

workaccount

Is there a way to schedule all the machines to shutdown at a certain time centrally?

aidan_walsh

You could run a script on one computer using the shutdown tool.

Karoma

workaccount wrote:

Is there a way to schedule all the machines to shutdown at a certain time centrally?

Can you please explain what the network setup is (OS on all clients,server, AD/workgroup?)

workaccount

XP and 2000. Active directory.

Tivoli

if its just a power saving idea, s3 standby is just a good.

advantages
pc boots back up almost instantly
can easily be set to standby after an hour or 2 without use
less work on hard drives

disadvantages
might cause problems in a power cut

matt-dublin

either that or set up a batch script using shutdown.exe

it will need to be run from a windows 2003 or xp machine.

then just use scheduled tasks to run it.

i think the format is along the lines of

shutdown \\computername /r /t:(time in seconds) "Message to send to omputer" /y /c

feylya

shutdown -i

Enter the list of workstation to be shutdown and the time. Done.

db

If you need to shut them down at a specific time schedule the script to run on one workstation to shutdown all the others at the time you want it to happen. Don't forget to specify -f to close any running applications. The user the shutdown app runs as needs to have admin rights on all the machines to be shutdown.

Capt'n Midnight

Tivoli wrote:

disadvantages
might cause problems in a power cut

yeah - if all the PC's are set to power on when the power comes back the combined load may trip the switch

aidan_walsh

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

yeah - if all the PC's are set to power on when the power comes back the combined load may trip the switch

I would think that only servers should have that function enabled by default. How common is it for business computers to have it on (the last place I worked it was disabled, or unsupported)?

Capt'n Midnight

matt-dublin wrote:

either that or set up a batch script using shutdown.exe

it will need to be run from a windows 2003 or xp machine.

then just use scheduled tasks to run it.

i think the format is along the lines of

shutdown \\computername /r /t:(time in seconds) "Message to send to omputer" /y /c

lookup psexec IIRC something like
Psexec \\* shutdown /Y /C /t 10

Microsoft have serveral versions of shutdown.exe going back to NT4 and Terminal Server 4 that took different switches.

also have a look at things like advanced ip scanner which use windows to issue the shutdown command, but also can issue WOL commands to the network can be woken up next morning.

many PC's can be set to wake up in the morning (say at ten to the hour ) so you save power, but users have everything ready for them