OT? Closing down Windows 98 over a network - does it need software?

[John S.]

Simple question - I am setting up an old computer without
monitor, keyboard or mouse to use as a store for backup files via
its network card. After a bit of fiddling round and some
assistance from some great people on usenet, I have managed to
get it to start up OK without the attached peripherals.

When closing it down I understand I could do this over the
network if I install VNC or Tight VNC on both machines, but I
would be grateful for advice as to whether I really need to
install such additional software for this purpose.

Is this something that can be done simply via command line with a
small batch file?

Thanks, John Selby

 

[Bob Adkins]

Simple question - I am setting up an old computer without
monitor, keyboard or mouse to use as a store for backup files via
its network card. After a bit of fiddling round and some
assistance from some great people on usenet, I have managed to
get it to start up OK without the attached peripherals.

When closing it down I understand I could do this over the
network if I install VNC or Tight VNC on both machines, but I
would be grateful for advice as to whether I really need to
install such additional software for this purpose.

Is this something that can be done simply via command line with a
small batch file?

Dunno about software, but your NIC's must have net boot capability in the
BIOS, and remote boot must be turned on.

Bob

 

[Terry Russell]

Simple question - I am setting up an old computer without
monitor, keyboard or mouse to use as a store for backup files via
its network card. After a bit of fiddling round and some
assistance from some great people on usenet, I have managed to
get it to start up OK without the attached peripherals.

if it is backup, why shut it down?

If something goes wrong with the main machine , then what?
You have an orphan machine with no ready access.

$4 mouse, $5 kb, $10 Monitor , apache
and you also have a web/cgi/etal test engine

Not much backup is cheaper than a $50 cd burner and a 100 pack of cds
your time is worth 4 megabytes per second
about the time it takes to read the filesize and see it wasn't
worth the time to read the filesize ;-)

When closing it down I understand I could do this over the
network if I install VNC or Tight VNC on both machines, but I
would be grateful for advice as to whether I really need to
install such additional software for this purpose.

Is this something that can be done simply via command line with a
small batch file?

you run something then most shutdowns will hang prompting because a user is
connected

try and get the remote machine to run something __like__ this
if a file called doit.now appears it will do a (rather) forcible shutdown

waitforshutdown.bat
====
@echo off
:loop
if exist doit.now goto doit
rem delay32 is an external delay application
delay32 5
cls
goto loop
:doit
del doit.now
C:\WINDOWS\RUNDLL32.EXE SHELL32.DLL,SHExitWindowsEx 13

 

[John S.]

you run something then most shutdowns will hang prompting because a user is
connected

try and get the remote machine to run something __like__ this
if a file called doit.now appears it will do a (rather) forcible shutdown

waitforshutdown.bat
====
@echo off
:loop
if exist doit.now goto doit
rem delay32 is an external delay application
delay32 5
cls
goto loop
:doit
del doit.now
C:\WINDOWS\RUNDLL32.EXE SHELL32.DLL,SHExitWindowsEx 13

Thanks for the idea Terry. After a bit of playing round I got
something to work. Had some initial trouble until I realised
that the delay command was not available as a DOS command on this
computer, but found that I could use the CHOICE command instead
(which has a default to proceed on delay when no choice is made)

If you're interested the batch file (which is run from a shortcut
in the computer's startup folder) looks like:-

shutdown.bat
============
:loop
if exist stop.now goto stop
echo ***** Waiting for remote shutdown command *****
choice /ty,2
rem "choice /ty,2" produces 2 seconds delay when no choice is
made
cls
goto loop

:stop
del stop.now
echo +++++ the computer will shut down in 5 seconds ++++++
choice /ty,5
echo SHUTTING DOWN NOW

C:\WINDOWS\RUNDLL32.EXE SHELL32.DLL,SHExitWindowsEx 13
================

Of course, the echo remarks aren't seen as there's no monitor
attached to the computer - just put them in there when I was
testing.

Had problems the first time I successfully shut down with this
batch file, as the "delay" wasn't working, and computer wouldn't
start afterwards, even in safe mode. Had to use scanreg to get
back to a working registry. Wondered if this was caused by
forced shutdown while the stop.now file was bing deleted.

Anyhow, it works OK now with the delay from the CHOICE command.

Thanks for helping me.

John S

PS - to answer your queries - this "slave" computer was given to
a volunteer organisation I belong to and I'm simply using it to
store weekly backups of important files from the admin computer.

Peripherals are disconnected to save space and clutter. The
computer has a faulty floppy drive controller and isn't worth
much. I figure while it's turned off it is not consuming power
and is not at risk of being compromised over the network if
anything happens to the main computer.

Backup takes only a few seconds, using a Powerarchiver command
line batch file. Then the slave computer is shut down and turned
off.