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Main Area and Open Discussion => Living Room => Topic started by: techidave on January 27, 2008, 01:50 PM
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I have been trying to use the shutdown in a batch file to log a user off at a certain time but am having difficulties getting the switches right. I am using shutdown -c-l 300 -m "Time restrictions are now forcing you to logoff in 5 minutes; please save all your work." But the problem with this is it defaults to 60 seconds instead of 5 minutes. It also grays out the option to cancel which is what I want. If I reverse the c and l switch then it will do the 5 minutes but the cancel button is now active. All I want it to do is log them off but this will shut the computer down instead.
The l switch is suppose to log off only and if I remove the m switch then i cannot get the 5 minutes and it shutsdown.
Any ideas on how to fix this? Maybe this could be a coding snack?
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Now i'm confused... What OS do you have?
My win xp pro sp2 doesn't have the -m switch, and the -c switch is for adding a comment to the shutdown dialog...
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I have XP SP2. I downloaded the shutdown utility from Beyond Logic Shutdown http://www.beyondlogic.org/solutions/shutdown/shutdown.htm
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Ok, now i understand.
It's a shame that the default "shutdown" utility that comes with windows doesn't allow you to logoff and have a timeout.
There are a few shutdown utilities that i'm sure are able to do this...
What exactly would you like to do? have the system display a message indicating that the computer will log of in X minutes, right?
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that is correct. I have set up restrictions using the net user routine but it won't log them off if they are already logged in. So lets say I have "son" set to end at 9pm and would like for the logoff utiltiy to run at say 9:05pm and then in 5 minutes it would log him off at 9:10pm.
is this doable?
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It sure is doable, so much so that it's done! :)
So, it only has 2 arguments (which are mandatory): timeout (in seconds) and message.
Example:
logoffin.exe 120 "the computer will logoff in 2 minutes"
There's a minor quirk: it won't log off until the messagebox is closed. As a workaround, i added a timeout of 30 seconds to the messagebox, thus, the minimum time that it guarantees the computer will be logged off is 30 seconds.
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using the program you mentioned(the beyond logic shutdown) try using shutdown -s logoff -l 300 -c -m "Time restrictions are now forcing you to logoff in 5 minutes; please save all your work."
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thanks for the suggestions! I will try them both and see how I like them. Since the kids are now on that computer, I will have to wait to try it out.
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if you want more choices, take a look here (http://cybernetnews.com/2008/01/24/cybernotes-remotely-restart-shutdown-computers/). there are several tools mentioned.
• CyberNotes: Remotely Restart & Shutdown Computers (http://cybernetnews.com/2008/01/24/cybernotes-remotely-restart-shutdown-computers/)
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I've found Shutter to be excellent.
http://www.den4b.com/
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I have used both
Shutter (http://www.den4b.com) and
PowerOff (http://users.pandora.be/jbosman/applications.html)
Both utilities have the capability to LogOff a user as what you are looking for.
Currently at my niece&nephew's computer, I have task scheduler invoke a batch file calling PowerOff to shutdown the computer after 45 minutes of inactivity. There's a 30 second message pop-up window warning of the shutdown. The PowerOff specific command in the batch file I am using is:
start /min poweroff.exe shutdown -force -warn -warntime 30
You can add the "-nocancel" option to prevent the cancellation of the action from the warning message box or sys tray.
Patrick