Power Management Software for a Windows Domain

_Kaiser_

Hey all,

In our new savings-conscious enviornment, I'm looking for free (or as close to free as possible ) that would allow me to set all PC's to shutdown at a specific time each evening. Ideally something that can be manged from a server.

Must support Windows 2003 and XP Pro (ideally also 2008 / Vista)

Any suggestions? Cheers!

Orion

Create a text file containing all IP addresses of the PCs. You can export this from DHCP if you use it. Or better still create it in Excel with all IPs in the PC scope.

Then a simple scheduled batch file on the server.

FOR /F %%t in (%0\..\ips.txt) DO shutdown -f -s %%t

with the batch file and ips.txt in the same folder.

oh and you'll need the shutdown.exe file - it's in the Windows Resource Kit.

seamus

That would work alright for a small setup.

If you need something for larger setups, you could add something to the logon script which copied over the required commands and then created a scheduled task which forces a shutdown. This is more scalable because new machines will automatically be setup. Which is the kind of setup I like.

There is one major hurdle I can see with my approach - if you have laptop users, it might force a shutdown when they're working outside of the office. This could be offset by adding a clause to the shutdown script which checks to see if the machine is attached to the company's subnet. If not, no shutdown.

Orion

I prefer the central approach personally. Users could potentially disable the scheduled job or delete the script. If it's done from the server users can't meddle with it. And it would work fine for a larger set up too. I've used something similar on an adhoc basis for >400 machines - e.g. power maintenance being done in work so we shut down all pcs remotely. Any large set up would be using DHCP with a defined PC scope separate to a server scope so you could a) have all IPs in the scope in a text file or b)script an export from DHCP to a text file of all active leases.

Orion

In an AD organisation I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to write a custom GPO that will shut down all PCs at a certain time too - this way you could even exclude mission critical ones - e.g. Server admin pcs that need to be left on for remote access etc.

Capt'n Midnight

Or just set power saving so pc's go to standby / hibernate after x minutes of inactivity. Will also save power during the day when people are away from their desks.