Re: Rebooting a PC while not logged-on

Tech-Archive recommends: Fix windows errors by optimizing your registry

From: Angus Robertson - Magenta Systems Ltd (angus_at_magsys.co.uk)
Date: 01/10/05 

Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2005 10:53 +0000 (GMT Standard Time)

In article <uYn72oq9EHA.1524@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl>, gerry666uk@yahoo.co.uk
(Gerry Hickman) wrote:

> OK, it's clear now. Sorry if you told me before. I lost part of the
> thread somewhere, then went away over Christmas only picked up on it
> again over the last few days.
>
> >>Can you remind me of the exact API call, and does this issue affect
> >>rebooting using calls from WMI? Can anyone else clarify this?
> >
> > The API is InitiateSystemShutdown which fails.
> >
> > The WMI Win32_OperatingSystem Reboot method fails with the same error
> > number so presumably uses the same API, as I told you on 17 Nov....

I've finally worked out what's happening. On Windows 2003, it seems you can
not shut down the PC while it's sitting on the 'Log on to Windows' dialog,
but you can shut it down while it's on 'Welcome to Windows, Press Ctrl Alt
Delete' dialog. This is a change from previous versions of Windows and does
not appear to be documented anywhere.

When you press CAD, the logon window appears, but after about a minute it
closes and you are back on the welcome window. This explains comments found
on MSDN about waiting a while and try to shut down again.

What is not mentioned anywhere by Microsoft is that if you change Local
Security Settings, Security Options, 'Interactive logon: Do not require Ctrl
Alt Delete' to enabled, you can then never shut down windows because the
logon window is continually displayed. And this is how I set up all my
servers, to simplify logon. While this is a simple workaround, I still
consider the original change a bug.

Angus

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Connecting to Windows servers through adsl
    ... Did you try to use the dial up connection on the same laptop (windows ... | Subject: Re: Connecting to Windows servers through adsl ... |> | the servers automatically thus preventing to show me logon window. ...
    (microsoft.public.win2000.security)
  • Re: Connecting to Windows servers through adsl
    ... I'm using my laptop which is already a part of our Windows NT domain. ... If I connect to internet through dialup modem, ... > | servers with their internal ip's and machine names. ... > | without any logon window. ...
    (microsoft.public.win2000.security)
  • Re: Cannot send mail
    ... The damn logon window ... What has gone wrong with Windows Mail?? ... connection to the server has failed. ... Incoming mail is POP3.live.com. ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.vista.mail)
  • Re: Networking issue between XP Pro and Windows98se -
    ... booted up and the first time it gave me logon window I just hit the enter ... Now if I could just find out why the old 16bit program won't install on the ... authentication problems between Windows 98 and Windows XP are very often ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)
  • Re: XP log on screen dispaying programs running and emails unread
    ... > XP logon window that shows which programs are running and how ... > emails I have not read. ... Switch off the E-mail count with TweakUI. ... Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)