Remote Shutdown of Windows Systems

Remote Shutdown of Windows Systems
Last Updated: 21 Jan 2004
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*** PLEASE NOTE: Link(s), If Provided, May Be Wrapped ***


The following tools can be used to remotely SHUTDOWN and,
if necessary, REBOOT a Windows NT/2000/XP/2003 system.


CONSOLE COMMANDS

• SHUTDOWN ............... Resource Kit -- Win2K and prior
• SHUTDOWN ............... Native Utility -- WinXP and 2003

• AINTX Utilities ........ http://www.dwam.net/docs/aintx/
• Down ................... http://www.netexec.de/fs_lstools.html
• PowerOff ............... http://users.pandora.be/jbosman/applications.html
• PsShutdown ............. http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/pstools.shtml
• Shutdown ............... http://www.budja.com/shutdown/


GUI

• SHUTGUI ................ Resource Kit

• WinRemote .............. http://www.admwin.com/winrem.htm
• DameWare ............... http://www.dameware.com/
• Hyena .................. http://www.systemtools.com/hyena/
• PowerOff ............... http://users.pandora.be/jbosman/applications.html


WHITEPAPERS & TECH DOCUMENTS

• http://support.microsoft.com/?KBID=177650
• http://www.msfn.org/win2k3/shutdown.htm


PERSONAL NOTES

• For the most part, these tools have to be executed
  on an NT/2000/XP system and will only work against
  NT/2000/XP systems. For crossplatform support,
  consider using a Remote Control utility (e.g. VNC)
  or one of the more robust Administration Tools
  (e.g. Hyena)

• Some folks subscribe to the theory that NT systems
  should be rebooted weekly or monthly. I am not one
  of those people.  I've had machines stay up for as
  long as I chose not to change hardware, or update
  the service pack.  If you have a problem which
  causes a memory leak, you should either remove the
  software which has the leak, or restart that service
  at some daily/weekly schedule, rather than rebooting
  the entire server.

• XP and 2003 come with an upgraded version of the
  utility which allows for information about the
  shutdown to be logged to the EventLog.  This can
  be controlled via Group Policies.