log off at specific times

Hey all.

I'm looking for a way to make the computers at the local library here log off at closing time. Unfortunately the library hours are not on a standard schedule. So I need to make the computers log off at 4:50 PM Tuesday - Thursday, and at 1:20 PM on Friday and Saturday. I've tried using the task scheduler but I must be screwing something up as it isn't working the way i want.

Anyone have ideas how I can do this? Preferably without downloading any software but if i have to I can.

Oh and 5 of the computers have W7 Pro 64 bit and 2 have W7 Ultimate 32 bit.

parental controls will not work as the times the computers need to be turned off are not right on the hour. I think I found out what I was doing wrong with the task scheduler. I had them successfully go into forced hibernate with a task today. However the system that was running an install program using the password from the admin account didn't go into hibernate. I'm guessing the admin account rights to install that program were over-riding the hibernate task.

Bare Foot Kid said:

kormath said:

parental controls will not work as the times the computers need to be turned off are not right on the hour. I think I found out what I was doing wrong with the task scheduler. I had them successfully go into forced hibernate with a task today. However the system that was running an install program using the password from the admin account didn't go into hibernate. I'm guessing the admin account rights to install that program were over-riding the hibernate task.

Hello.

Unless this is what you meant by 'forced' try adding the /f (force) switch under 'arguments' to see if that will sort it for you and be sure to post back with any further questions you may have and to keep us informed.

click to enlarge

Yes the -f argument is the force i was talking about.

The computers are set up with 2 user accounts. The first is called Exec and its set up as the admin account we do all the installations etc. with. The 2nd is just a standard user account called Patrons. All the library visitors use the Patrons account to do their email, etc. Some of the customer like to abuse the librarian and refuse to log off the computer at closing time making them stay sometimes up to 45 minutes late while they dink around online. So what we wanted was a task or some way to shut down the computers before closing time to kick those nuisance customers off so the librarians can go home on time.

What I did was create a weekly task for tuesday wednesday and thursday to have the computer hibernate at 4:55 pm. I used the shutdown.exe file from the windows directory and used the -f -h arguments for force close and hibernate.

I also created a message task to give a popup message 5 minutes prior to hibernation warning the user the computer is going to shutdown in 5 minutes.

So far that has worked fine. I'm not sure what ShadowJK meant by a standard admin account, but I think the reason the 3 computers that failed to hibernate (out of the 6) were because I was on the patron account and had given it rights by entering the Exec account (admin) password to install adobe reader. I think that over-rode the task for hibernation even though I had set it to run at the highest priority.

I'll call them tomorrow and see if they went to hibernate properly as scheduled today. Hopefully they did.

The only other problem I have is trying to get the warning popup task message to appear on top of other windows. It is popping up on the task bar but behind the active window. It does flash though on the task bar so people have been opening it to see what it is. I guess that will work but I'd like it on top of all windows so it's plainly visible.