Switching off desk top computer - doh! question

[IDontKnowWhereMyMedalsAre]

Quick question. Where I work I am responsible for switching on and off 28 computers. When I switch off I just press the on off button and they switch off almost straight away. However colleague insists we have to do control alt delete. Does it make a difference?

You should shut down properly not just press the off button

You should shut them down properly. Investigate the control panel to see if you can set them up to switch off at a set time (macs can do this)

Depending on how the PCs are set up then pressing power button could well be doing a proper shut down. It's in the Control Panel / Power Options / advanced settings / power button (or something like that).

Smiths - you probably find, by doing that, you are putting your pc into hibernate or deep sleep mode which may or may not satisfy.the OP's work requirement.

Doesn't really matter, if that's what the gaffer wants then just indulge his ignorance if you're on the clock.

I reckon that's at least an hours work though.

Many years ago I wrote a small programe to shutdown a computer at a certain time of day.
I would not be surprised if such utilities exist now, or a network utility that remotely lets you shutdown systems on the same network.

You may want to have a Google to see what is around for the operating systems involved.

den4b.com Shutter - example of a utility that will do an automated shutdown.

Or better still simply configure each computer to hibernate after not being used for say 2 hours. That way they will automatically go to 'sleep'

As for turning it on, you can still do it the manual way or if you have an IT person, speak to them about using a Wake on LAN (WOL) utility to wake them all up.

You could type the following on the command line:

at 18:00 "shutdown /s /t 300"

This will cause the computer to shut down at 6pm. You'd get a warning 5min (300 seconds) before shutdown.

Thanks everyone. I will speak to IT, not confident of an outcome there but will try. Ninja sadly its on my time. ICT lab in the library at school closes at 4 so we cant switch off till the students have finished, so I spend my time loitering from about 3.45 turning them off as people leave. Its why I need a better solution really.