Reboot Buddy Version 1.1.2

[scott]

Here is the first public release of our Reboot Buddy tool. We have used this utility to keep servers running efficiently with daily or weekly reboots triggered as Scheduled Tasks. Reboot Buddy has a couple of advantages over using the default shutdown task available in Windows:

• Logs the reboot request, shutdown, and successful boot.
• Our forced reboot tends to shutdown windows more reliably.
• Will be eventually incorporated into a system monitor application that will notify you when a computer fails to reboot successfullly.

Version 1.1.2 has the following features :

• Simple user interface
• Intended to be run as a Scheduled Task with Administrator Permissions
• Can be run with /REBOOT or /SHUTDOWN parameter
• Run with /BOOTING on startup to log a successful boot and auto-exit

804 kb download includes installer

Click here to download (or right-click and Save File As...)

[scott]

Reboot Buddy was created for use by I.T. administrators. It requires a few steps to setup and verify that a system is working correctly. Here is the recommended setup procedure:

1) Install Reboot Buddy. We recommend that you add the icons to the desktop so you can access the log more easily.

2) Create a Scheduled Task through the Control Panel. You should be able to choose Reboot Now from the list of available tasks. Otherwise, you will have to specify the path to the Reboot Buddy, and edit the task afterwards to include the /REBOOT flag. A typical calling path might be (We don't know why, but a scheduled task created with the wizard still uses 8.3 naming) :

C:\PROGRA~1\ONLINE~2\REBOOT~1\REBOOT~1.EXE /REBOOT

Set the time and day as appropriate for daily or weekly reboots.

3) You may want to verify that Reboot Buddy also inserted a Successful Boot call in your Start Menu Startup folder. This will allow you to check the log and verify your boot times. A typical successful boot entry may look like :

"C:\Program Files\Online Solutions\RebootBuddy\RebootBuddy.exe" /BOOTING

We have found that unexpected delays during boot indicate upcoming problems. For instance, our servers typically reboot in 5 to 10 minutes. But we have seen several logs where the server starts taking over 30 minutes to reboot. In two cases, we then manually rebooted and found that the server was doing hard drive maintanence from lost clusters and we swapped out the bad raid drive prior to failure and improved performance. Your milage may vary, but we really like the log.

4) In some cases, you may want to enable auto-logons for that server if you have desktop software that must be running (Credit Card Processors, Machine Controllers, and some Web Services require this). So you will need to edit the registry to enable auto-logon. You will need to find the WinLogon key, which is found in two different places depending on your Operating System. It will probably be one of these two locations under

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE :
SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowS\CurrentVersion\WinLogon
SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowS NT\CurrentVersion\WinLogon

Inside WinLogon, you will need to set or verify three values :

DefaultUserName = Your Desired Logon User
DefaultPassword = Your Desired Password
AutoAdminLogon = 1

All three are REG_SZ values (string values), and you may need to create entries for DefaultPassword and AutoAdminLogon. A value of "0" without the quotes in AutoAdminLogon will disable auto-logon.

5) We recommend that you run the task manually from the Scheduled Task list to verify that you have it setup correctly.

6) On some systems, you may need to get rid of popup error messages and reminders that start on boot. We usually scrub the Start, All Programs, Startup group and scrub the entries in the following registry areas :

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE :
SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowS\CurrentVersion\Run
SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowS\CurrentVersion\RunOnce

HKEY_CURRENT_USER :
SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowS\CurrentVersion\Run
SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowS\CurrentVersion\RunOnce

We sometimes also have to check the win.ini and system.ini files, which is easily done by run sysedit.exe from the Start menu. It is possible to start programs from these files as well.

7) After cleaning up your boot process, verify that the log shows all three entries from your reboot test. For example :

Wed Jan 10, 2007 10:22:42am - Successful Boot
Wed Jan 10, 2007 10:20:22am - Rebooting Computer
Wed Jan 10, 2007 10:20:12am - Reboot Requested

You're in business. Good luck!