| We are frequently involved in projects with | | | | |
| small and medium sized organisations. Due to | | | | 1. Open Notepad (or another text editor) |
| the size of these organisations often the | | | | |
| network infrastructure available is limited | | | | 2. Type: shutdown -r -t 5 |
| as a result of smaller budgets than their | | | | |
| larger competitors. One side effect of this | | | | 3. Save the file somewhere sensible (such as |
| reduced budget is that our clients sometimes | | | | the desktop) with a name such as restart.bat, |
| need hardware and software to function in | | | | the important thing is it ends with the |
| ways it is not exactly designed for. | | | | extension of .bat |
| | | | |
| One example of this is often not being able | | | | To run the file just double click it, the |
| to afford the licence fee for Windows Server | | | | switches in the shutdown command are: |
| and instead to use Windows XP Professional or | | | | |
| even Windows XP Home to run a central file, | | | | -r = restart (instead of shutdown) |
| print or database server. Clearly this | | | | |
| approach would not work for a Microsoft | | | | -t 5 = the amount of time to wait before |
| Active Directory Domain Controller but can be | | | | restarting in seconds - in this case 5 secs. |
| used for many other types of server and there | | | | |
| are times where there is no other option. | | | | The second issue is that terminal services |
| | | | functionality available to facilitate remote |
| There are two usability downsides to be aware | | | | administration through tools such as RDP is |
| of for remote administration when taking the | | | | only sufficient to allow one user to log on |
| decision to use Microsoft Windows XP instead | | | | at a time. This can cause problems if you use |
| of Windows Server. | | | | it as a development server for example, but |
| | | | as a file store it is unlikely you want more |
| The first is that Windows XP Professional | | | | than one or two administrators - with a small |
| when accessed through Remote Desktop Protocol | | | | number they can manage the situation by phone |
| (RDP) connections does not display a log off | | | | calls. |
| button or a reset option on the shutdown - | | | | |
| the only option is to shut down the server | | | | Techita would advise wherever possible to use |
| which is not ideal and will mean that it | | | | the version of operating system designed for |
| won't restart afterwards; this can be solved. | | | | the role you intend the server to perform, |
| | | | however when this is just not possible this |
| The simplest way to overcome the problem is | | | | tip may make the management that little bit |
| to create a batch file to restart the server, | | | | simpler. |
| to do this: | | | | |