Remote Shutdown - Access Denied :0

ED E

With the whole save the planet affair and now the recession I'm thinking its time we start turning all the machines off at night. We have several machines in different locations all on a workgroup. I've tried to use the "shutdown" command [eg: shutdown -m \\STUDY -s] but I get an access denied response ["STUDY: Acess is denied(5)". I've tried tweaking around but nothing I do gives me access. The "Remote Shutdown Dialog" gives the same response.

I have and Admin account on both machines that I'm testing this with, bot under the same name. One has a pass, the other is open, but even with both passless I get the same response. I presume the shutdown service is the same for Vista and XP?

So, any suggestions on how to assert my authority on the other machine and force it to shutdown.?

Thanks,
Lethal.

CptSternn

I have found under XP the remote shutdown does not always work. This is because of a few reasons.

First, some apps lock the system and won't let it shut down, even with the /f switch. I don't mean open apps, but some apps that run in the background (TSRs) and as services can keep the system from rebooting remotely.

Second, if the machine is hung it will give you that error. Many times I have tried to reboot machines that users have reported as being 'locked up' only to get the same 'access is denied' message. The RPC (which it uses for the remote reboot) can't engage as the system is locked, this also will stop you from rebooting remotely.

Finally, I have found if a user is logged on and working on certain apps (i.e. some adobe products I know of) this too will over ride the remote reboot.

I'm sure there are other reasons, but it appears that the remote shutdown options are not very reliable under XP to say the least. In Vista and W2K2003 they work brilliantly, it just seems under XP there are many minor things that cause it not to work.

biko

Automate it locally?
http://oreilly.com/pub/h/2879

degsie

Been thinking about this. How would you remotely restart your computers if you successfully shut them down remotely

Jonathan

Wake on lan.

ED E

degsie wrote: »

Been thinking about this. How would you remotely restart your computers if you successfully shut them down remotely

Dont need to TBH, if they're needed the user will most likely be 6" in front of the machine:) The storage drive on the network is always in standby as its actively backing up.

Anyways, I went looking online again. Forceguest reg value is set to "1" as some people think thats required and then I came accross a pair of threads discussing local security policies. Under Local Security Policy you have the option to add users under "force shutdown from a remote system". I can add my network path which it finds fine, but it fails to save when applied. More googling suggests that this is due to a corruption in the security log file(I defenitely have the access rights). So, there are restoration methods, but I wont pretend to 100% understand them.

Anyone repaired them before?

Thanks
LB.

IT-Guy

degsie wrote: »

Been thinking about this. How would you remotely restart your computers if you successfully shut them down remotely

What jmccrohan said - wake on LAN. You'll need to activate it in the machines BIOS and use a program called Magic Packet to send the wake up call.

I've used the remote shutdown feature of XP with PCs joined to a domain, in that scenario it worked flawlessly. Never tried it using PCs on a workgroup but will add it to the list of things to test!