How do you ensure your computers are shutdown at night? If not how would you like to deploy a tool across your network (e.g. Group Policy, ZENworks etc.)? What features would you look for?
I've just written www.nightlyshutdown.com but need to make it more feature-rich to appeal to as many companies as possible. Any input greatly appreciated.
Answers (4)
I use a VBS script to shut down our computers. It reads a list of all of the computers from the domain, ensure that the excluded servers, workstations, that we do not want shutting down are not processed and then runs a WMI shutdown command to shut all of the others down.
Hi Joel!
We use RemoteExec, one of our software solutions, to remotely power off systems at night, or whenever it is needed.
Using RemoteExec we also:
- Add/Modify/Delete registry keys and/or values
- Install patches, Service Packs and hotfixes.
- Deploy Windows Installer packages in silent mode
- Run applications, programs and scripts
- Copy files and folders
- “Cleanly” close down any opened user sessions after a certain hour
- Launch a general shutdown
- Send alerts to users: display messages, run sound files
- Reboot a remote computer
…
Links:
NightWatchman by 1E is used to shutdown any machine on the network, can also be used to reboot the machines. Excellent software that can be configured in a myriad of ways.
Links:
Guillaume R
Consultant - Active Directory Projects and Infrastructure
Best Answers in: Information Storage (1)
You mention easy deployment through AD. This is good. Now, can I recommend making sure all settings for your application reside in the registry and distributing an ADM file to configure your application through Group policies? (if it doesn't do that already) That would be a must for all but the smallest of companies. Also make sure it has safeguards such as detecting if a user is currently using it, having the option of displaying a countdown screen, and also, very important, have a way to turn the computer back on (through wake on lan or advanced bios settings) in time for patch management.