Software for immediate shutdown of PC

#1

Hi,

My office computers should not be switched on after 7 PM. If anybody
tries to switch on the PC, it should shutdown immediately after
booting. Is there any free software for this purpose?

- Krisunela

#2

Quote:

On 5 Jan 2007 21:09:35 -0800, "Krish" <krisunela (AT) hotmail (DOT) com> wrote:

My office computers should not be switched on after 7 PM. If anybody
tries to switch on the PC, it should shutdown immediately after
booting. Is there any free software for this purpose?

<gfretwell (AT) aol (DOT) com> wrote

Quote:

You could do a dos batch trick, looking at the clock and calling
C:\WINDOWS\RUNDLL32.EXE user,exitwindows
if it is within the time limits. Stick it in Autoexec.bat with "echo
off" so nothing shows up on the screen..

The protection thus available seems small. It can be
bypassed by booting up in Safe Mode and renaming
AUTOEXEC to boot Windows. A BIOS password
offers better protection.

--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)

#3

Previously Krish <krisunela (AT) hotmail (DOT) com> wrote:

Quote:

Hi,

My office computers should not be switched on after 7 PM. If anybody
tries to switch on the PC, it should shutdown immediately after
booting. Is there any free software for this purpose?

If you want this as a security feature, then this would be very hard
to do right. Otherwise add an autostart-programm (script) that checks
the time and does shutdown if needed.

Arno

#4

Quote:

On Sat, 6 Jan 2007 08:32:16 -0500, "Don Phillipson"
d.phillipsonSPAMBLOCK (AT) ncf (DOT) ca> wrote:

The protection thus available seems small. It can be
bypassed by booting up in Safe Mode and renaming
AUTOEXEC to boot Windows. A BIOS password
offers better protection.

<gfretwell (AT) aol (DOT) com> wrote

Quote:

That assumes someone could really figure out what was going on. This
would just start booting and before there was any real activity on the
screen it would shut down.
The BIOS password would need to be entered, no matter what time it
was. If you knew it at 0830 you would still know it at 2030

It was perhaps a mistake to delete the original question:

Quote:

My office computers should not be switched on after 7 PM. If anybody
tries to switch on the PC, it should shutdown immediately after
booting. Is there any free software for this purpose?

This is poorly phrased. We can be sure the OP does not mean
he wants the PCs (after hours) first to boot and then shut
down. He wants simply to prevent unauthorized users
from starting the PCs after hours.

--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)

#5

Previously gfretwell (AT) aol (DOT) com wrote:

Quote:

On Sun, 7 Jan 2007 09:08:27 -0500, "Don Phillipson"
d.phillipsonSPAMBLOCK (AT) ncf (DOT) ca> wrote:

On Sat, 6 Jan 2007 08:32:16 -0500, "Don Phillipson"
d.phillipsonSPAMBLOCK (AT) ncf (DOT) ca> wrote:

The protection thus available seems small. It can be
bypassed by booting up in Safe Mode and renaming
AUTOEXEC to boot Windows. A BIOS password
offers better protection.

gfretwell (AT) aol (DOT) com> wrote in message
news:5gmvp2t0hfscfl9ops7ru1ct64rl6j63re (AT) 4ax (DOT) com...

That assumes someone could really figure out what was going on. This
would just start booting and before there was any real activity on the
screen it would shut down.
The BIOS password would need to be entered, no matter what time it
was. If you knew it at 0830 you would still know it at 2030

It was perhaps a mistake to delete the original question:
My office computers should not be switched on after 7 PM. If anybody
tries to switch on the PC, it should shutdown immediately after
booting. Is there any free software for this purpose?

This is poorly phrased. We can be sure the OP does not mean
he wants the PCs (after hours) first to boot and then shut
down. He wants simply to prevent unauthorized users
from starting the PCs after hours.

The only real way to prevent unauthorized access is physical
protection that keeps people from getting to the PC. If they are smart
enough to find and defeat a DOS batch file in the autoexec they can
probably defeat the BIOS password. (most windoze users don't even
know DOS exists) All you really have to do is plug the CMOS reset
jumper and autoreconfig the system. If I was a serious hacker I would
simply plug the hard drive into another system I do control with some
long cables.
I imagine this is really just to keep the employees from playing games
and downloading porno after hours.

There is one other viable option: Strong disk encryption an the
key either in the users mind or on a token (chipcard), with
the token being more secure for most users.

Apart from that, only physically denied access helps.

Arno

#6

My problem was that after a session on xp/pro I would try to shut
it down, but before I could get to the suutdown screen it would
jump backwards and end up in notepad or something like that.
Tryiying over and over to get to the "shud down" function, it
would repet the above and jump backwards to something else like
notepad. Finally a friend told me when that happens, just
touch the "start" button for a second and it would shut down
immediately. I tried and voila!!! it worked.
Joe

#7

My earlier posting may kindly be seen. I solved the problem by the
following DOS batch file for my Windows 98 PC and the batch file is
added in 'Autoexec.bat' file. This batch file uses two utilities namely
'Hour.com' and 'Shutdown.com'. The 'Shutdown.com' utility is not needed
for Windows XP users; they can very well use Shutdown command of
Windows XP. This batch file will shutdown the PC if anybody boots the
PC before 8 AM or after 7 PM

- Krisunela

@echo off
call hour
IF ERRORLEVEL 19 goto shut
IF NOT ERRORLEVEL 8 goto shut
Goto End
:shut
Shutdown
rem Shutdown -S -t 0 (for Windows XP)
:end

#8

On Thu, 2007-01-11 at 02:51 -0800, Krish wrote:

Quote:

My earlier posting may kindly be seen. I solved the problem by the
following DOS batch file for my Windows 98 PC and the batch file is
added in 'Autoexec.bat' file. This batch file uses two utilities namely
'Hour.com' and 'Shutdown.com'. The 'Shutdown.com' utility is not needed
for Windows XP users; they can very well use Shutdown command of
Windows XP. This batch file will shutdown the PC if anybody boots the
PC before 8 AM or after 7 PM

- Krisunela

@echo off
call hour
IF ERRORLEVEL 19 goto shut
IF NOT ERRORLEVEL 8 goto shut
Goto End
:shut
Shutdown
rem Shutdown -S -t 0 (for Windows XP)
:end

What ERRORLEVEL does hour give if I start the PC up at midday?

What happens if I come in early and alter the bios time?
What happens if I adjust the time backwards at 6.59 pm?
What happens if I just leave the PC on past 7 pm?

You should start a NTP connection or use a time-switch in your mains
supply.

--
Jeremy Boden

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Software for immediate shutdown of PC

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