Shutdown of PC at the end of the night

[Guest guest]

You might consider simply leaving the PC running 24/7.

I have had 2 to 5 PCs running 24/7 for the last 16 years. After the first 6 years and 2 drive failures due to sags and momentary blackouts, I installed APC UPSes with power correction on all and haven't had a power-related failure since. All PCs are set to put their monitors in standby after 30 minutes, and I disallow CPU-intensive screen savers for power saving reasons.

Just a thought.

Tom

[Guest guest]

dgiordano wrote:

I've replaced far more hard drives and power supplies then fans, minus of course the 65 POS terminals that shipped with bad cpu fans.

My point - We have more problems with fans then power supplies or hard drives.

[Guest guest]

contactmike1 wrote:

This is a batch file that will work with Windows XP. Just schedule the batch file to run at the time you need the PC to shutdown. Your appliance timer should work to turn the PC back on.

http://pc.lorsequences.com/shutdown.zip

contactmike1 - Your sugestion/batch file works perfectly. Thank you.

Here's a recap for everyone else

1 - I set the BIOS in the computer to"

2 - When power returns after power failure - Power PC ON.

3 - Copied contactmike1's batch file to the LOR directory. (Can be anywhere.)

4 - Using Windows Schedular, (control pannel) I created an event to run the batch file at 11:04 - My last show ends at 11:02

5 - To have the computer turn on at 5:30 I use an appliace timer, but I think I will use an X-10 controller. Plug the computer into the appliance timer.

Appliance timer - I set the time to turn off at 11:15 and on again at 5:30

X10 module - Since X10 modules can be flakey, here's what I'm doing. I'm using an appliance module, and when I issue the commands to turn it off or onn I will have them issued 5 times at one minute intervals.

[Guest guest]

On an XP Pro box, there should be a utility named shutdown.exe in the system32 folder. you can schedule a job in the task scheduler to run it at a specific time to shutdown the box.

But, like other have said, it's nice to keep it up 24x7, that way you can play an announcement sequence to let passers-by know what time the show will be running. By doing that, you only need a sign in the front giving the station, then your announcement can tell then what time the shows run.

[Guest guest]

I think a batch file is needed for the command line options unless you know of a way to add the command line switches in scheduler?

[Guest guest]

TraceWilson wrote:

On an XP Pro box, there should be a utility named shutdown.exe in the system32 folder. you can schedule a job in the task scheduler to run it at a specific time to shutdown the box.

But, like other have said, it's nice to keep it up 24x7, that way you can play an announcement sequence to let passers-by know what time the show will be running. By doing that, you only need a sign in the front giving the station, then your announcement can tell then what time the shows run.

You can not run the shutdown.exe file without adding the switches for the options you want. If you double click the file file itself, nothing useful will happen.

Douggg, you can try adding the switches directly into the scheduler. I know you can add switches into shortcuts by appending the file path with the -s -t and -f (or whatever switches you want.) This may work in the scheduler also if you care to try.

For example, this shortcut target will actually override your homepage and open hotmail.

"C:Program FilesInternet Exploreriexplore.exe" www.hotmail.com

[Guest guest]

contacmike1 you are correct. Thanks for pointing that out/reminding me.

Your batch file is working perfectly, (with a slight mod, I removed the cd) I like the BAT better because I have that in my LOR directory. For back-ups or to move to another machine I copy one directory and I have everything.

[Guest guest]

Sorry about the change directory, but for some reason the file wouldn't work on my computer without it. It's probably a problem with my default search path.

[Guest guest]

As I reacall all I did was remove the cd line so the batch file has one line, c:windowssystem32shutdown....

Works perfect.

[Guest guest]

Douggg wrote:

As I reacall all I did was remove the cd line so the batch file has one line, c:windowssystem32shutdown....

Works perfect.

Yup. The command "cd" stands for change directory. All it did was move into the system32 folder so it could execute the shutdown.exe file directly. The reason why it works OK for you is windows automatically searches in places like the /windows/ and /system32/ directories. But if that automatic searching gets messed up, people will need the CD command or else the shutdown command will not work. It's basically an insurance policy so the file will work on more computers.

There is no reason to put it back in unless yours suddenly stops working.


*Edit* I didn't read your post completely. What you did works too. It just condenses the code into one line. What I thought you did was delete all the path text and just had the shutdown command. Theorectically, "shutdown -s -f" should work without any paths at all.