Shutdown PC via Remote Control

[wrems]

I’ve seen others requesting to have a way to turn off their pc via their remote control. Here is a technique that I have discovered to do the job easily using Neilm’s great Dynamic Menus.

I’ve set up a sub menu with PC power options. One option to shutdown my PC and the other to abort the shutdown sequence. The reason I have an abort sequence is because I have a scheduled task within windows to automatically shutdown my pc at 1:00 am. The process has a 30 minute timer that way if I’m up watching Sage between 1:00 – 1:30 I know that I need to run the abort the shutdown sequence before 1:30 or Sage will suddenly go blank with no warning…

If I’m going to bed and no longer need my PC running I can manually shut it down with my created menu item. Otherwise if I forget or fall asleep windows will proceed to shutdown my PC at 1:30. I don’t worry about missing any recordings since I don’t record anything during the times that my PC would be off, and I can save a little power and money on my electric bill. It’s probably nominal but heh….

If anyone knows how to incorporate these commands into the shutdown menu already built into Sage I would like to know how to do that… Otherwise this process works fine as a sub menu item.

- Using Dynamic Menus create a New External Program.
- At the first screen type the path: C:\Windows\System32\Shutdown.exe
- Second screen type the arguments: -s (Other arguments: -s (shutdown, 30 second default), -a (abort), -l (log off), -r (reboot), -t xx (specifies time until executed)
- Third Screen tell Sage what to do
- Fourth screen Name the command whatever you want: Shutdown PC or something
- Make sure to save the menu before exiting Dynamic Menus

[73cuda]

I'm sorry I can't help you with your question but maybe you can help me.

I'm running STV on Media Center Edition 2005 OS and I'm trying to setup a scheduled task that will shut down the PC at say 1:30 AM.

My question is do you know how to set this up for this OS ?

I've gone to system32\shutdown.exe and tried everything I know to.

Thanks

[wrems]

Shutdown.exe won’t run unless you give it at least one argument, double clicking it won’t do anything… You’ll need to set up a scheduled task and add the –s argument for sure and any additional options.

Control Panel/Performance & Maintenance/Scheduled Tasks

Add Scheduled Task and browse to the system 32 shutdown exe. Give it a name and a scheduled run time. Once done with the wizard right click the newly created task and go to properties and add the arguments to the end of the Run: (see argument options in my last post.) This is how mine reads: C:\WINDOWS\system32\shutdown.exe -s -t 1800

I use the –t 1800 to have it take a full half hour to complete that way I have time to abort the sequence if I’m watching Sage between 1-1:30. So that way I know that 1:30 it will shut down. You can set the time in seconds to what ever you want the default with no –t xx is 30 seconds.

HTH

[73cuda]

Thanks, that did it.

However I did have to run it as "NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM" to get it to run.

I'm not using dynamic menus yet, I'm just using task scheduler, is it possible to abort the task without dynamic menus ?

Thanks again

[wrems]

What I did was create a new shortcut on my desktop with the abort argument… If you right click on the desktop and go to New/Shortcut you’ll get a wizard walkthrough to create a shortcut. Go through the similar steps you just did for the creation of the task. When it’s done right click on the newly created shortcut and go to properties and set the target for the shortcut with the –a (abort) argument:

C:\WINDOWS\system32\shutdown.exe -a

[73cuda]

OK, that makes sense. But my STV setup is the server pc is in another room and controlled by remote controls running through an IR repeater system then into a USB-UIRT.

So unless there is another way you can tell me, it looks like I'll have to do the dynamic menus install, is that correct ?

Thanks

[wrems]

Can't help you there... There is probably a way with Girder or something else. Setting up what you want to do with dynamic menues is easy, and may be your best option.

[73cuda]

Alright, I think I'll check out the dynamic menus.

Thanks for taking time to help me, It's certainly appreciated ! This is great forum because of people like you.

Best regards