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A little preface to the situation: I'm working at a hospital where a lot of machines are left running, sometimes overnight, and I want to put forward a proposal of shutting down inactive and not logged in machines remotely from the server host in order to reduce overhead running costs. However I know next to nothing about server administration, and don't know what the server configuration is like (other than it's a Windows orientated setup).

Although people might suggest leaving it with the IT department, they tend to act very slowly, sometimes even sitting on or avoiding solutions to problems (for example, asking for 7zip to be installed hasn't been answered in 2 weeks, but if a computer just needs a clock reset, they're all over it by the next day).

So I want to present a complete solution ready to go for the IT department that should ideally be as simple as possible to implement (IE it shouldn't require any additional software to be installed as the IT department will produce a flurry of excuses - likely for budget reasons - as to why they won't install it or they're argue it's too complex, will take a lot of time etc).

The server-side program should ideally:

  1. Check to see if the computer was active in the last 5 minutes (IE keyboard or mouse movement or whatever is closest), and
  2. Check to see if anyone is logged in if it hasn't been active (staff might need to urgently leave their computers)

If it finds the computer hasn't been active and isn't logged in, it should force the computer to shutdown. Ideally, this should have the ability to be done manually, at a set time (IE 6pm after everyone from the administrative departments have most likely gone home) and at regular intervals (every hour). Even just a manual option would be acceptable.

Is there any way to achieve this?

SE Does Not Like Dissent
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    `I want to put forward a proposal of shutting down inactive and not logged in machines remotely from the server host in order to reduce overhead running costs` - Do you have the exact cost savings figured out yet? Have you done a cost analysis yet and do you have your data ready to present to the appropriate parties? `Although people might suggest leaving it with the IT department, they tend to act very slowly` - Oh, so you're not in the IT department. Does that mean you're just nosing around looking for ways to make improvements to **other** departments. – joeqwerty Nov 05 '15 at 22:30

1 Answers1

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Each computer has power options that could be configured for this. You can find them within the Control Panel. You can set an action to happen after a certain period of inactivity; even going as far as putting the system to sleep or shutting it down.

However, if those options are blocked, there is a simple answer to this. You can create a scheduled task to shut the machine down at a certain time or after a period of inactivity. This is not difficult and using those words, the IT department will know what you mean.

Jonas Lear
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  • Would that include inactivity whilst the user is logged in? Because that is not what should happen. Because vital medical documents are written up whilst logged in, a doctor or nurse could leave their station for an hour to deal with another issue, only to find that due to inactivity their machine is off (some doctors/nurses are very non-technical and can't distinguish hibernation/suspend from total shutdown, and so might accidentally power it off). So it has to be simple: only shutdown if no activity and no-one is logged in. Not sure power options allows that. – SE Does Not Like Dissent Nov 05 '15 at 21:47
  • Then I would use the power options for that. if you go into them, you can see all the various options you have with them. You can set them to do whatever you like after a certain amount of time. – Jonas Lear Nov 05 '15 at 22:41