Discussion on:

Schedule a restart operation with Windows XP's Shutdown utility

Unfortunately the sad reality is that a "fresh reboot" is usually REQUIRED for a Microsoft OS....

Everyone who's read this article and is thinking of doing this - maybe it's time to start thinking about Linux workstations?

XP just isn't a business OS - lets face facts.

a business based OS. I would take a guess at maybe MILLIONS of users helping their companies make MILLIONS of dollars using xp workstations. And yes I do use Linux some and like it a lot. I just tend to be more open minded than my hardcore Linux friends. Bashing an OS gets you no where fast. If it were Linux that had the market share there would more Linux bashing. All this is about is trying to knock the big dog down. Its the popular Linux thing to do.

Emar is dead on.
If Linux was on 98% of computers, it would be the same story.
Asking for a perfect OS is like asking an IT person to stop whining about Windows. Ain't gonna happen.
If Windows ran perfectly, most of us wouldn't have jobs.
If you're so brilliant, write your own OS that's perfect.

QUOTE: " If Windows ran perfectly, most of us wouldn't have jobs.
If you're so brilliant, write your own OS that's perfect. /QUOTE

Yes, yes, yes and yes! I've been saying this for so long I thought I was beginning to think that I am the the only person who thought so.

Build a better mousetrap and they will come and any other idomatic clich? you want to come up with.

kwitcherbitchin and deal with it. If you have the $$ to go start your own firm and have a 100% decision ability on what OS you run, or if you can top MS do it. But unitl then, put on your big kid skivvies and deal with it.

You have a good point suggesting people to live with the reality of the current situation, yet I believe this discussion is about finding ways to improve on flaws of most widely used OS in the business environment.

Shutdown.exe is a good tool to restart a computer, but lets consider another method. Most business users do not have their PCs run anything when they are not at work. Why not save electricity and improve lifespan of machines by actually powering the computers off. For majority of users this makes more sence than scheduling automatic reboots.

...because that is when we push out updates, new software, etc. We are currently rolling out a bi-weekly restart of systems.

ag691234 writes: "Why not save electricity and improve lifespan of machines by actually powering the computers off."

Are you sure of this? In most organisations it is not the PC that sucks the power oout of the system it is the monitors. And turning off PCs overnight is not as effective as you'd like to think. When else can I run Defrag Commander on my boxes, push out updates via sms or MOM and run any other tasks that I have to do?

Andrew Martin

with the advent of the LCD monitor, power consumption by monitors has dropped substantially, in fact an investment in a LCD monitor to replace a CRT monitor will probably pay for itself within 2-3 years or sooner based on power cost savings alone.

PC's do use alot of power, power hungry cpu's, hungrier video cards, motherboard fans, power supply fans, faster harddrives & faster optical drives and every other device installed in that pc uses power, alot of it. Don't fool yourself into thinking that pc's are energy efficient machines. There is a reason those machines get hot! Plus that heat can have deteriorating effect on the pc's components. These pc's all have power buttons, use them!

You may be using defrag commander to schedule defrags but couldn't you just have users leave their machines on friday evening when they leave for the weekend so that you could accomplish your mass defrag via defrag commander plus push out whatever windows/office updates are required by your workstations and maybe even schedule virus/spyware scans during the weekend when users are not likely to be using their machines?

It just seems like a lame excuse that you need to leave the machines on during the week so that you can defrag them.

There are other ways to do things, you just have to be willing to do them. PC's use alot of power, becoming energy smart & more efficient will ultimately save you alot of time & money. Who wouldn't want that?

The problem is that Linux is more stable, secure, and structured than MS OSes.

I really don't want to repeat about 50 of my posts, so just look up my posts on this and read them.

The problem is that Linux is more stable, secure, and structured than MS OSes.

I really don't want to repeat about 50 of my posts, so just look up my posts on this and read them.

NT

When you install XP, you are greeted with something like 'Welcome and congratulations to the best media playing OS', and so was it with W/2000.

Nowhere do they tell you that 'This is the fastest, most stable and securest system for doing business transactions.' On the contrary MS in the EULA tell you explicit NOT to use it in critical areas. The most unsecure parts of it commonly agreed to be IE, and Outlook are impossible to get rid of - even if you have no use for them.

If it can be built it can and will be broken. There is NO OS out there that is beyond being broken in to. If I built ABC OS I would also state in the EULA the same thing. Why should I take the fall for a admin not configuring systems the way they should, or at least to the best it could be done. That really isnt a valid point you tried to make.

If Microsoft intended XP to be for business use only, there would not be an XP Home edition. Take your XP Home edition and attempt to log onto a domain and you'll quickly discover that Microsoft never intended XP to be strictly a business OS. Windows and Linux both have strong points, and also weak ones. Unfortunately most people tend to stress only the strengths of their favorite system and only the weaknesses of other systems. If I stated that I had a new OS which I wanted everyone to use, I would stress it's strengths and how those strengths make my OS the best. I would not even consider listing my OS weaknesses since this would keep people from trying my system. I think that those posting to a TECHNICAL discussion like this one might better present themselves by stating that Linux can schedule a restart (if you want to do one) by using the "at" command, or adding "shutdown" to one's crontab file. Linux has been able to schedule shutdowns and restarts since the early days of the OS. Microsoft has finally recognized that it may be beneficial and added the command to the system without bothering to tell anyone that the option exists, or how to use it.

I just replaced Linux OS for two medium sized businesses here locally with Windows Server 2003 Small Business Premium Edition and magically all of theor problems went away. Linux is OK if you like DOS. I rarely see Linux running the show anywhere without an ungodly amount of scripting. Someday when Linux grows up and develops it may become Vista 2. Who knows. Happy days all.

I need to update several PC's weekly to update various files, is it possible to schedule these over the network, they all have XP Pro.

You can run shutdown.exe from the command line and use the -m switch to specify a remote pc on the network:

shutdown -m \\pcname

I would image this would work equally well in a scheduled task although I haven't tried it.

Vince, yes it's possible :o)
You can do the updates and reboots too, all over the LAN/WAN/or internet if you desire. Since theres alot of assumptions here, to better answer your question and to assist you, I recommend learning Cscript or WSH (Wscript) - the Windows server operating system has many system and local environment variables to utilize look at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/default.mspx to begin. Also, when you've gotten your feet wet, http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/createit.mspx. Both are good resources for script administration. Another helpful item(s) you'll need to be familiar with to be a good Windows Administrator is to click Start/Help and Support Center, and search for "Command-line reference A-Z" - without the quotes. Many of the enviroment variables can be manipulated with the commands that will appear. Best of luck. A

I think this is what this forum is for. I think I see a 'PRO'. ppl that care

I've been using the shutdown command for just that purpose. I've even been using my office XP machine to remotely reboot our Windows 2000 servers. It works like a charm. I used to either spend an hour on a Sunday evening rebooting all of them or have to get up early in the morning to do the critical ones before anybody got in.

c:\windows\system32\shutdown -m \\servername -r -t:60

Reboots the server and allows a 60 second warning just in case someone (more than likely, me) is working on the server and forgot about the reboot. I doubt it will ever happen since I scheduled them for a 6-7 AM reboot in 5 minute intervals.

use the command

shutdown -m \\computername - r -t 60

don't use a colon,
you'll get an error and have to retype the command,

All in all, I think this is a great command, you can even use the comment (-c) switch and write in a little message that will appear on the remote system during the countdown before the shutdown

you can also use shutdown -i to bring up the GUI interface for this command and select several machines to reboot/shutdown, set the time for this process, include any messages, etc.

I don't think this command gets enough advertising/praise (especially the GUI version) and alot of newer admins that don't know about this option could save alot of time with this function.

I don't advocate leaving winxp/2k/9x workstations powered on indefinitely.

PC workstations should be shut down at the end of every work day. Heck, even your home pc shouldn't be left on 24/7. The only devices left on almost all the time are my servers and even they get a break every now & then for maintenance & testing.

At work, you have a few issues: leaving user workstations powered on is a security risk, even if the user locks (ctrl-alt-del and click on lock computer) their winxp/2k/nt workstation before leaving for the day, depending on your network infrastructure, the computer is potentially available to be hacked into - no such thing as perfect security: routers, hardware & software firewalls, passwords, etc. can all be broken into depending on how saavy the hacker is. Turn off your workstations to eliminate that risk (even turn off Wake on LAN in bios settings to lock down that pc ).

Also, not too much mention thus far on power consumption. PC's use alot of electricity and alot of users probably fail to make use of standby/hibernate features. Energy is expensive and if you have several (hundred or thousand depending on your company) workstations left on 24x7x365, that's just money you're throwing out the window. Also, I've seen some power supplies fail in my lifetime, I would hate to come to work to find a smoke filled atmosphere because of a power supply that bit the dust (trust me it happens) and took the computer down with it. Not to mention wear & tear on the pc from constantly being left on, computers get hot and that affects how they perform (cpu's get slower as they warm up), give those pc's (and printers and other electronic devices) a break. How hard is it really to shutdown a pc and turn it on when necessary, maybe it adds 2-3 minutes to your schedule - big deal.

Use less energy, reduce your energy bill, save money and while you're at it you're reducing pollution and saving the environment and ultimately being more secure - that's being responsible & power smart.

- just my 0.02 cents cdn...
rob,wpg

Instead of just locking the machine, as you said, you can actually log off. Also, you must remember that if you backup things on the workstations, such as system state or users documents you need to leave the machine on for it to be backed up

that in a work/office network environment,
you're probably going to have users saving their information on a file server (in separate pre-designated user home directories) because it's easier & quicker to backup contents stored on one machine rather than having a backup server perform a separate backup operation for every pc on your network. Most workstations don't come with raid setups so their is no safeguard against harddrive failure. If a workstation fails and the data on a specific workstation hasn't been backed up, you lose everything. Getting users to save their data on a network file server eliminates this problem because your server is running a decent raid setup, getting backed up nightly to some form of storage media. If a user workstation fails with this setup, you just image another machine and get the user up & running with an hour and none of their data has been lost.

Also, technically even if a user logs off a machine and leaves it powered on, if a hacker gains access to your network and has achieved some form of elevated adminstrative privileges he can access the drive contents on any workstation connected to the network regardless if the user is logged off or not. Powering off the workstation eliminates this problem.

I would also add that not only should the workstations be powered off at the end of the workday in this scenario, you should also setup power-on passwords in the pc's bios settings - this way a user/hacker can't get windows to even start unless the correct power-on password is entered.

Trust me, I know that this all sounds like security overdose but we live in different times, I wouldn't have considered any of this stuff 10-20 years ago but with so many deviant hackers/$hit disturbers on the net nowadays it's better to be a little paranoid than lax when it comes to the security of your workplace network and all of the data contained by the workstations & servers on your network.

On top of that as I mentioned in a previous post, you're using alot less electricity by powering off your workstations at the end of the day, which saves alot of money and reduces pollution - who wouldn't want that?

You're absolutely correct. This auto restart is nothing more than a gimick. Can you imagine being away on holidays and this set up is not turned off!

instead of automatically rebooting the machine, why not schedule it to shut the machine down?

If you don't have anybody working past 12am until 6am, that's 6 hours of electricity...

fwiw, I recommend that people shut down their machines once a week... typically on weekends, and start fresh on Monday morning (or Sunday, depending on when the start of their week is...)

This scheduler could go ahead and shut their machine down over the weekend for them, if they forgot to do it themselves... pretty cool feature!

This is quite long. But I wanted to share my work with those Linux people that think XP cannot support major tasks with minimal effort.

I "push" out updates all of the time to the machines in my building. Have over 600 PCs and notebooks. You can do a great job of pushing out work with Tivoli or Alteris. We have both in our Enterprise. But using DOS scripts allows me to have total control over making "right now" updates.
I have found that over half of our machines were using a Server in Memphis instead of the one in Nashville. We have enough network problems related to bandwidth w/o needless traffic.
It may be just a coincidence that ya'll are discussing "Restarts". I will be pushing out two scheduled jobs for every machine in our office tomorrow morning. Using DOS, the AT command and the functionality of XP I can push out these jobs to every machine.
One will run every Mon and Thu in the early AM to defrag C:. The other will run every Sun and Wed in the early AM to "restart" the machines. Now I now someone is going to saw there is no need for defragging twice a week. Your partially correct. The machines are in dire need of defragging and I have had to defrag machines as much as 5 times in a row to get them really clean. So twice a week for a month or two, then I push out a new AT command for each machine to only run once a week or once every two weeks.
No there are some on you who have been criticizing XP for reboots required. I have found that XP is quite stable (unlike NT) and frequent reboots aren't necessary to keep the OS stable. BUT......our enterprise pushes out MS hotfixes all of the time along with patches that support our enterprise applications. All machines have the UpdateIT utility on them to allow users to force the updates w/o waiting for the pushes or because many times the enterprise pushes fail due to network problems. For the UpdateIT util to work correctly, it needs a reboot to ensure that if one of the hotfixes needed a reboot before another hotfix could recognize the hotfix was installed and could also then be installed.
But our users are very production oriented and must account for their time. They have no desire to take any extra time to run a script from their desktop. So I pushed out a CMD file to All Users\...\Startup that call the UpdateIT utility and points it to use our local server instead of the main enterprise server many states afar. Now I am not at the mercy of the users running UpdateIT or again severely degrading my bandwith by going to the enterprise server which supports tens of thousands of machines.

... but have some lovely parting gifts!

Seriously, I have windows server systems and xp systems that only get rebooted once every couple of months; and they don't really need it then. Usually it's just something I'm installing or uninstalling that requires a reboot.

Steve G.

I have two rackfulls of machines that haven't been rebooted for over a year, and probably won't be rebooted for another two when I take them out of service.

Now, let me count how many are running windows. Oh look! not one.

?Boss, Degadar just told me that if we just changed our OS to a 'open' one that we would not have to reboot our servers for over a year! ....??! What???... Training... old files..??....
?No if we backup all the old MS word files as .RTF then clean them up a little, reformat them and save them in an open format no prob! ..?
?No the same for all the other formats,...hard? ... Oh no nothing..,?
?as for training.. hell I think all this open stuff is as close to Windows as you can get.. I think that retraining will not be needed.?
I will note after we roll out to FreeOS.lix, This department will be able to save a few $$ and I think this free $$ that will be generated by laying off most of our IT crew could be used for, lets say, well it's been a few years, it's about time I saw a little pay back on all my hard work?

I regularly leave my system up for weeks at a time with no ill effects. The unfortunate thing is that microsoft has not figured out how to install a patch without restarting the system. So take your M$ Bashing unstable platform C**P and go tweak some settings in /etc.

BTW, I think Linux is great but you have to support what your organization uses.

What is the benefit of a daily restart?

tia

I have had a few Windows 2000 Servers go for up to 6 months without rebooting, these servers have SQL 2000 on them too, but then we start to get problems were users can't login to their databases, so we restart and all is good again.
But I think 6 months is pretty good, even with Netware servers, there is patches that I apply every 3-8 months that needs a server restart anyway.
Doesn't kill us to restart does it?

Regards,
Jim

thank you, roger and randy

Have you close all programs and shut your computer down to complete the install. I have seen this on all software and hardware installs. On every thing from IBM, AIX to windows.
If you do an upgrade, ether to a work station or server it will update the system or the kernel (the main processor of your operating system) Yes a reboot is needed for this.

It's called VMS, what Microsoft stole from Digital Equipment (DEC). Now, after making a mess of it, it's called WNT/2000/XP/Vista. Why was it called WNT? Because WNT are the next letters of VMS silly! There was a reason why the uptime for the operating system was a 3 character field then had to be bigger: the record for a VMS system running non-stop is 18 YEARS!!! Not uncommon for system to run for over 5 years without booting, running all sorts of application. Its still around.

Although it is nice windows xp has shutdown.exe built in 2000 doesn't and that is what my servers are. I use psshutdown from www.systernals.com which is free and can do everything and more.

One other thing I use is a Wake On Lan command for many of my computers. In the BIOS you must set the WOL to start up. Then from a command line you enter the MAC address and the computer will wake up. At home I have an HTPC which is on 24x7, but I have it wake up other PC's in the house to get them started for the day in my attempt to save a little electricity. I use this at work as well, starting a PC, doing a LIVESTATE backup and then a PSSHUTDOWN. It's perfect, but a bit of maintenance.
Jake

Rebooting to have a Fresh machine ???

FRESH ? really hope you are meaning washed up...
an operating system requiring a reboot to operate correctly IS NOT an operating system
is a MESS (using mess, but the correct word is another one)

WORST
2003 rerver reboots each week, at the best... thrre was the worst currently... and it was the "Microsoft Never Rebot System". How Happy I am

WORSTER
I've other three Unix Freebsd based servers, running since 6 months...
using a fraction of CPU, a slice of hard disks...
AND NEVER REBOOTING !
What are they running ?
Firewall, mail, internal web server, external webserver, DHCP, DNS (a server runs a splitted horizon DNS), webProxy, portAuthorizationProxy, SAMBA !
Enough ?!?!?!?!

Who said a reboot is *required*??? First of all we are talking about XP here, not a server class OS. A freshly rebooted system will always run better, the questions is how *much* better..... It's almost always the apps that cause the problem, not the OS.

I run over a dozen W2K servers 24x7 and only reboot if there is a problem (usually hardware) or an update is installed.

Hank Arnold

I dont know why people are hell bent upon taking Windows for a reboot. I have had instances where my WinXP & Win2K desktops have run without any problems for more than 4 months. Ditto for many servers that I've seen!

The only time I usually reboot is when a patch is installed or a hardware is upgraded.

Ahhh... finally a bit of common sense - from someone who actually uses XP!

rebooting!

Sadly to say...
I've installed thousands of update and patches to Unix Systems,
and except to MAJOR kernel upgrades... I was never required a reboot !

My W2k servers reboot daily if the windowsUpdate is set to auto !

and my w2k3 server... just the same
If it is due to Microsoft patches or other reasons... I simply DO NOT CARE!
It reboots!

Because of low life trouble makers looking for ways to damage Windows, MS has to patch the OS. If people spent the same amount of time and energy trying to mess with the "beloved" Linux OS, Linux would cease to exist.

To Randy,Roger, and others for your replies.

tom of course is not wrong, as anybopdy cannot prove opposite.

but...
if you have some programming experiences in Unix and windows you shall have noticed some subtle difference
if not, try these simple tests.
try to allocate 50GB memory in windows and Unix. notice that windows try to allocate, starting a swapping sequence lasting half an hour (P5, 4GB Ram, 800GB HD)
Unix answers allocation error, according to its actual resources.

try to open a file and exit a program without closing that file.
Then with a system monitor watch opened files.
Unix has left none.
Windows has a peculiar counter... Orphan FILES !

try to write in a foreign memory of kernel or other applications!!!
In windows IT IS POSSIBLE, even if with some (little) effort!
In Unix... you get nuts !

Maybe you are true, Tom! but maybe NOT!

This is JUST an example

why M$ OS is considered uncontrollable ?
Many reason , here comes one.
because service/users policy are inconsistent.

Everybody knows that a service can be started under a user account. So I can create a user, assign to a Service logon priviledge and make a service run under this account.

I Install a service, create a temp directory for that service.... and expect life to flow quietly!

I just discovered CA Brightstore ArcServer Service made my W2k3 ActiveDirectory server crash. It saturated the root directory with more then 2000 .TMP files, reporting an error. a Stupid error : "cannot found cartridge xxx".
Of course this is a Application error (should not report 2000 times the same error in less then 2 minutes!)
of course it is NOT ( :8 ) OS fault if the service wrote 2000 files!
BUT THE OS ALLOWED IT TO DO IT IN THE ROOT DIRECTORY!
which was filled COMPLETELY! and why should an OS crasch , just due to some TMP file wrote in a directory ?

Try to do this under unix, and you will find out your app cannot simply write files in root directory, outside it's own created with priviledge assigned directory

Sorry. m$ Os is UUU
Unstable, Uncontrollable, Untested!

AAA looking for a tough Operating System!

Windows updates are not daily. You've got a problem if they are rebooting every day. Critical updates nowadays tend to be on or around the 11th of each month, so that's less than daily.

Also you really don't want to be just installing windows updates on a server without testing them first where possible. Some server apps can just be killed by Windows updates, and you certainly don't want a W2k or W2K3 server rebooting automatically if it's running a SQL db.

We use WSUS and all the desktop PCs are set to reboot at 3am if required and the servers set to download the updates but be applied manually. We then spend a night once a month, either at work or from home, applying the patches to the servers and rebooting as and when required. That way we get no unplanned downtime on servers.

Terminal servers are rebooted automatically every night on a schedule but certainly not logged in as any user as that's not needed, otherwise RAM gets badly fragmented on them and performance suffers. Also logon scripts in AD can stop working and require a reboot so the overnight bounce bypasses this so we don't need to boot them while they are in use during the day.

Of course my main servers do NOT have any setting making them rebooting twice a day!

and the policy for rebooting can vary.

and of course I'm talking about a testnig server.
Yet it reboots!
Just ONE little question.
Fragmentation!
how can it be that memory/disks gets fragmented so easily in windows, much more than in other operating systems ?

I have running FreeBSD systems wich daily report memory fragmentation about 0%, and disk fragmentation about 2%.
ALL servers are always accessed by remote terminals (KDE Graphic) and/or telnet!

in windows, after one week use (and daily shutdown) disk fragmentation is reported to be about 40% ! ! ! ! ! (never got a reliable tool for memory fragmentation report under windows)
I should perform a daily Defrag !
According to M$ policy I should perform a FULL backup before every defrag!
But that is not a WorkStation's policy, that's server's!

The majority of the apps which we use are 3rd party program running under windows. Due to cost contraints in some case we are using 6-7 yr old software (QuarkXpress) which is not exactly optimised for Win2K/XP so putting it bluntly it can run poorly if you don't reboot daily on a pc with less than 512MB of RAM.

Unexpected crashes and the like don't free up memory when the programs exit every time, and if you've ever tried to run 2k/XP on 64MB of RAM that's what it can feel like.

Newer versions of the programs (Quark6, Office 2003 for example) don't suffer the same problems, so it all depends on your desktop environments and the software you use.

I've got desktops running as script servers, DHCP, domain controllers for example which don't *need* rebooting ever. They are of course rebooted when patches are applied as the OS dictates (Windows) when we have to apply them. Being a UK based but American owned company we're very hot on security so we get deadlines to apply specific patches. Previous to this we had Windows pcs and servers which weren't rebooted for more than a year at a time. I know other OS's run longer without needing a reboot but we don't use other OS's... but hey such is life.

Regards,

Dean

if I use an OS at the minimum (just few essential services, almost static as DHCP and DNS are not very dynamic applications)
So I do not need to reboot

Means : if I buy e car and use it just to go around in my garden, I do not need any check or refuel or spending ever...

well, you are Right I suppose.

First of all, in order to stay on topic, I think the shutdown tip has some decent applications. If you don't like it, don't use it. Secondly, and don't get me wrong, I'm not an MS basher and I really don't care one way or the other about linux (although it seems some linux folks have issues that will never be resolved in an MS forum --I'd hate to be involved in their relationship support group) --but I digress (like so many previously) Anyhow, I just can't imagine why ANYONE would want to auto-install a server patch that may have been issued and downloaded WITHOUT their prior review. I don't mind the auto-download but I HAVE to review the documentation to see what is affected before allowing the install --nothing worse than having to back out an update that caused problems -provided it CAN be backed out.
Sometimes a reboot is NOT a reboot.

I agree.
Why should everyone install a patch ?
worse
WHY should AutoInstall ?

That's why I think it's useless to try to get a fix on MS patches
Two years ago I was committed in rebuilding network of the firm I'm employed in
New ActiveDirectory, new dns, new security policies... everything from cratches.
After 2 months planning (we are not large, 12 employees, 25 stations...)
SO new policy. NO unnecessary patches ! dictat !

then I get a issue! no way to make an SQL start!
I open a query on M$... after about a week checkings we get a fix. I omitted a patch.
"It is NOT related to ANY service in use or usable by SQL!" I reply!

Yes but THAT patch related to the M$Messanger (which is DISABLED by policy on all stations and servers) updated a DLL which was somehow_I_still_Do_Not_Know related to SQL services...

The problem is not just fixing. Is what you are fixing and WHY !
After e FullWeek stop... we devided to install ALL patches, no more checking.
The cost of checking plus the cost of solving issues is unbearable!!

Yet I must admit that our server do some more reboot, but work fine!

the net result is : You cannot check what M$ patch because you don't know how m$ apps works!
that's why EU community commited M$ to a fine of 2Mil? per DAY , starting two years ago!
That's why I don't consider M$ reliable !

I have dozens of such issues... if anybody interested... just ask!

regards

Fact of the matter is that I'm hard on my machines for both administration and development applications. It is a bit of mess and I know I share some of the blame. Unfortunately, a reboot every so often does help (once every week or two I would say).

Now would I like to forgo the mess and reboots plus Microsoft altogether?

You bet!

But guess what Linux (which I do run) and Mac fans you can't run a tenth of the applications I do, so enjoy your small worlds and imagined superiority. When you get a real application base, let's say within the next ten years, I'll take a serious look at Microsoft alternatives. In the meantime I got some work to do!

Toys - not applications. The reason Mac and Linux don't have as many applications is they're not needed.

I bet your list of essential windows applications includes:

Windows registry editor, registry cleaning tools, defrag tools, disk repair tools, remote desktop control, disk partitioning tools, backup utilities, 3 different media players, archive utilities, network utilities, spyware removal tools, antivirus, firewall...

I guess if you call application development tools (VB, java and C++), web site development apps, Flash production, Adobe Creative Suite (yes, Mac people this is available on a PC but of course it's not as good as yours), SQL Server applications, Crystal reports, and video production applications toys then I guess you are a "real man" and write your own applications in assembly! If that is so, my hat is off to you!

Otherwise, I have to assume you to be a true believer like so many Linux and Mac people. I'm fairly agnostic about technology and will grab the best technology available for the job. That is why I have a toe in Linux at the moment!

If you really read the article it states that you have to enter your username and password n the app in order to run this. Who in their right mind would HARD CODE their password and log-in on their machine? If anybody got access to their machine then they have access to their network. Not a "Best Practice" in any sense of the word.

I posted a reply a little further down. No computers get logged back in. You only enter the username and password for administrative permission. They'll sit and wait for you at the initial login screen.

except for windows utilities... ALL other utilities are available on Unix/Linux systems!

Unix comes with excellent Firewall software and Network utilities...
in Windows you HAVE TO BUY everything...

I'm not against paied software. But I'd like a functional and working software...
not a patch_me_soon nightmare!

The bottom line is that just like some vehicles are designed for certain terrain and type of driving habits, Different OS's have similar points of "superiority" but not everyone can own every type of vehicle to have the best of every world. You have to use what is the best "all around" vehicle for your needs. Bashing a Jeep because it rides rougher than a Caddilac makes no sense...try taking that caddy down a mountan ravine off road! MS Products have their chalenges as do all other OS's but lets face it...it seems to be the "all around" favorite right now at least. Do'nt be angry about it, that won't help Linux get better will it? The point is (as was mentioned earlier), whatever OS is on "top" will be the target for attacks, malware, and yes.... bashing.

As I read the original post, I assumed this was just a friendly FYI. I do have one Windows box that I reboot every week, as there is a significant improvement in the performance of one of the applications (which is another story). This little tip will be a big help to us.

By the way, we run both Windows and Linux. Each have their place and as managers we must determine which is the best solution for each situation. To blindly support one platform is not in the best interest of the companies we work for.

Thanks for the tip.

I cant believe some of the child-like,petty responses. This is supposed to be a place for IT professionals, and IT pros dont go around knocking windows,linux, mac os, etc. As has been said there is a place for each of these os's.
IT pros should have better control of themselves for one thing. They supposedly have an education as well. Why not show it!
Here is a simple article about having a fresh(er)os, in the morning, on some systems that might benefit from same. And IT professionals go off on wild tangents about things not even related to this article. Might as well talk about the bombing in Lebanon, it fits as well as some other posts i have read here.
And, IT pros, starting acting like an IT pro.
Of course, this is not meant for those who posted properly and for those who dont have a perfect command of the english language.
thank you

To the point and very correct!

I think I stated this in a reply above, though not as well as you just did!

Granted everyone is talking about OS issues, but how about security? The article mentions a reboot schedule in which you enter your username and password, TWICE, but doesn't tell you why? If the computer reboots and logs you in automatically that is a problem. You cannot have automatic logins on a network without a security risk. We just have users shutdown the computers when they leave work. This gets rid of security and power failure/spike issues and allows them to get settled while the computer is booting up in the morning.

This is an interesting point. Am I incorrect in thinking that the use of the login creditials is to give the shutdown.exe app the rights to run? I don't think it would reboot and re-login a user's terminal... or is that the second step of this trick?

Has anyone actually used this method? If so, can you post as to your analysis of security risk?

Thanks!

Well, at least not the risk you are worried about. Who knows what other risks might be involved.

When you use the shutdown command on your local or remote computer, it simply shuts the computer down (or reboots it if you use the -r switch). I even use it to do a weekly reboot of our 2000 servers without any problem. I use my office computer with XP Pro to send the remote commands using an account with administrative privledges and every Monday morning we start with freshly rebooted servers.

The servers reboot and sit at the opening logon screen. Nothing is automatically logged in. The username and password is just for administrative rights.

As a user of Microsoft OS's since before Windows 3.1, there are many benefits to restarting a machine. Most of which have little to do with the OS but with the applications running on the system, as others have stated.

To comment about the 'Security risk' of typing in your username/password in the Scheduled Task setup, SecretAgentGuy is correct. It is to give authority to the system to perform the requested action. The system will not log itself in after the reboot without the use of a separate application or task to do so.
Any time a Scheduled Task is created, login credentials must be given -- not just for a scheduled restart. The security is built into the schedule.
For instance, perhaps you have set a security policy that does not allow the "normal" user of a Windows XP system to shutdown or restart their machine. The scheduled task can be set by a user that has been given rights to shutdown/restart the machine. The user that does not have rights can certainly create the Scheduled Task, but it will not perform the task if they don't have rights to do so.

Also, all this Microsoft vs. Unix/Linux/MAC talk is crazy. They're just jealous that they don't have:
1. An OS running on 90+% of systems in the world
2. A catalog of applications (games or otherwise) to even begin to stack up against what will run on a Microsft OS
3. Bill Gates' brain/forward thinking
4. Bill Gates' house

Just my 2 cents.

I have some PCs we use as our time clocks.
If one of these PCs gets rebooted, I have it set to auto logon to a restricted account and bring up the clock-in web page.

QUESTION: If I use an administrator account to schedule the auto reboot, will the PC auto logon into the restricted account or just sit there at the logon prompt?

If your PC automatically logs in after a restart (assuming this is for automatic powerfail recovery) and the shutdown command does not automatically log in, I would assume the computer would behave as if a power failure occurred and simply login to the restricted account.

I tested the auto reboot with the adminitrator account and the PC was able to auto login to the restricted account.
I set auto login with Tweak UI.

Since all users follow policy to its fullest extent I am sure nobody else has this problem... What about using this command and schedule to automatically shutdown a workstation that has been left logged on at night? No matter what OS you run, if a user leaves a workstation logged onto a network where information is available and an unauthorized person accesses that information without any authentication check, that is a problem.

You can set a Security Policy (Local or through the AD) to lock the system or disconnect it from the server at a specific time.
This can help ensure backups complete successfully without needing to skip files that are in use.

Your "tip" is very misleading and is the same wrong advice given by a ZD tip a month ago. (ZD had the strength of character to rebut and withdraw this advice when their teck lab weighed in on what actually happens.) The suggested "shutdown" is nothing of the sort, it is only a deep sleep, the computer is still actually ON and is still drawing and wasting power. Think about it, the computer OS has to be monitoring the clock to determine when to "turn on" the machine. Only a real Shutdown or Hibernate will stop the unnecessary use of power. Is it really all that difficulty to press one button (power on) in the morning? If everyone did this with their computers a huge amount of energy would be wasted and tons of CO2 generated in the process. Way to go!! Why not give out good advice that will help computer users AND not destroy the planet in the process?

Actually, I really think the article is referring to restarting an already running machine. It has nothing to do with having a computer hibernate or do some sort of pseudo-power down. While you are correct, it is a waste of energy to leave a PC up and running for no reason, the idea of being able to use this on servers, which must be kept running 24/7 is quite useful (it is native in 2003 and can be added to 2000 through the Resouce Kit). As for a desktop PC, there are some situations where keeping it running is a necessity. I actually keep my office PC running so that I can VPN in and see if there are any problems without the long drive to physically come in). Restarting it every morning, through the command would be useful. I usually make a point to have everyone power down their systems at the end of the day because like you, I think just letting a PC run idle for no reason is a waste of power.

So only Republicans leave thier computers on overnight? From my experience, it is my Democrat friends that do this, and they have no problems using pirated and stolen software either. It goes along the lines of their anti-capitalistic beliefs.

How childish can you people get? Give it a break. I would have hoped -given some of the titles around here, people could stay on topic and not make it personal.
Use it, don't use it, or offer a better solution, but don't make this a forum for your personal problems or latent issues.
Rather than IT Managers or Directors, I feel like I'm surrounded by 19 year old technicians.
I sure would hate to be a young tech learning from some of you. Do any of you ever plan on becoming CIO's?

CIO could be a Computer Information Officer, or a Completely Idiotic Operator. I think from the postings that several of the posters fall into the second category. If you want to BASH any OS you may do so. Tech Republic was designed (I think) to share insight and information. Bashing any OS does not do anything except take up serious time reading the posts when trying to find something useful.

I tried shutdown.exe on a XP Home Edition computer and discovered that it can be used to schedule a shutdown of that machine, but because XP Home is NOT a business PC it can not control remote shutdowns. Shutdown.exe recognizes computers by name, but not by IP address. Is this a flaw or a security control?

Well put. Especially the part about offering an alternative- not just complaining about the obvious. That's the difference between professionals and talented idiots.

This is proof that a 2 party system is bad. It divides the world int 'us' and 'them'. By definitions 'us' is made up of the good guys, and 'them' is made up of the bad guys. Very easy, you don't have to think.

Thanks for the method. This is just what we needed here to automate the rebooting we've been doing on an irregular basis.

Bruce.. didn't you read the posting rules before you replied? It specifically instructs you to drift off-topic, bad mouth the OS that you're not using, and blame TechRepublic for the ills of society.

I, for one, am greatly dissapointed by your simple, direct, well worded and up-beat comment.



-J

Excellent response SecretAgentGuy! I'd love to have you working in my organization, but your alias sounds a lot more fun.

Let me thanks Windows XP communitry with providing Shutdown.exe commands. it really helped me in automating restarts in my computer.

Thanks,
Sher Zaman

Some may not realize that you can shutdown boxes that you are remotely connected to via remote desktop (or rdesktop in linux) with the shutdown command. It is handy when the GUI option is not available to you (connecting to XP for example). Not earth shattering, but helpful if you didn't know.

WOW!
Mickysoft has disclosed yet another Unix command that has been around for decades.

Thanks, TR and responders, for the useful MS Windows XP tip? I'm sure it will help those supporting MS Windows XP (et al) environments - whether by choice or by mandate. Since the tip does not apply to Linux, alot of wasted reading was needed to get through responder tips and counter-tips (80 comments). Browsing through Linux tips I saw many with no comments, a few, 22 being one of the longer threads. I didn't see any MS Windows XP bigots cluttering what were otherwise succinct, beneficial threads!

Since I am working in a networked environment with "moderate" security requirements, I have a few comments on this whole mess:

1: The scheduled task will work until the user changes his/her password. After that, it will fail until he/she remembers to change the password in the scheduled task. This is not easy to remember to do for experienced users, and for the moderate to beginners, just plain unlikely.

2: For Domain based XP Pro systems, the shutdown command can be used to shutdown or restart remote systems as well, as long as the user issuing the command has the proper rights on the remote system. use the "-m" switch followed by either the computer name or the IP address. command would look like the following:
Shutdown -r -m \\computername

3: OS SchmoS - Who Cares. If it works for you, use it. If you have that kind of control and decision making capability great. For the rest of us poor saps, let us work with the tools provided and get over the chest beating.

would it work if say a user has both xp home and xp professional on a system?

This article was recycled from the future!!!!
http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/window-on-windows/?p=734
The paradox is mind boggling!!!

Some of the "wake on LAN" in the Bios setup would be good, if only I could figure out how to do that via wireless/bluetooth adapter (as my phone comes in range, the computer powers up... or power up the next day, or at 10 pm to do it's AV check/update backup what ever..., then go back to sleep until morning.
Then we would all have a utility that people would rave about. (start writing code folks). This should entirely be possible for corporate networks with wired LAN's..just a bit more difficult for wireless without some timer and self powered device attached.

Here are some good links a) if you want to use the command line utility. link1
Or you can also use the utility made by me in java which has the planned countdown timer and uses the psshutdown utility for performing the operation.
Link2