Shutdown! Now!!!

Sometimes I need to do a shutdown on computers thru command-line, and every time I need to look for the correct parameters list. So I decided today to write here some hints.

The command needed to force a restart on a windows vista computer is:

shutdown /t 0 /f /r

Btw you can force a shutdown or restart also on remote computers, and in this case the command is

shutdown /t 0 /f /r /m \\computername

I noticed that depending on the OS version you will be using “-“ instead of “/” to prefix commands. So for example on Win Server 2000 you could be using:

shutdown -t 0 -f -r

And finally here’s a complete parameters list:

C:\>shutdown
Usage: shutdown [/i | /l | /s | /r | /g | /a | /p | /h | /e] [/f]
    [/m \\computer][/t xxx][/d [p|u:]xx:yy [/c "comment"]]

    No args    Display help. This is the same as typing /?.
    /?         Display help. This is the same as not typing any options.
    /i         Display the graphical user interface (GUI).
               This must be the first option.
    /l         Log off. This cannot be used with /m or /d options.
    /s         Shutdown the computer.
    /r         Shutdown and restart the computer.
    /g         Shutdown and restart the computer. After the system is
               rebooted, restart any registered applications.
    /a         Abort a system shutdown.
               This can only be used during the time-out period.
    /p         Turn off the local computer with no time-out or warning.
               Can be used with /d and /f options.
    /h         Hibernate the local computer.
               Can be used with the /f option.
    /e         Document the reason for an unexpected shutdown of a computer.
    /m \\computer Specify the target computer.
    /t xxx     Set the time-out period before shutdown to xxx seconds.
               The valid range is 0-600, with a default of 30.
               Using /t xxx implies the /f option.
    /c "comment" Comment on the reason for the restart or shutdown.
               Maximum of 512 characters allowed.
    /f         Force running applications to close without forewarning users.
               /f is automatically set when used in conjunction with /t xxx.
    /d [p|u:]xx:yy  Provide the reason for the restart or shutdown.
               p indicates that the restart or shutdown is planned.
               u indicates that the reason is user defined.
                 if neither p nor u is specified the restart or shutdown is unplanned.
               xx is the major reason number (positive integer less than 256).
               yy is the minor reason number (positive integer less than 65536).

Accessing web services from swf – never use virtual directories

Today I learned something, as usual the hard way :-(

We were deploying a “dynamic banner” developed in flash, and we were already late: this banner is going to access a web service (that we developed, .Net 2.0, Sql server-based) every time is loaded in a web page.

Now, to keep things easy, I decided to deploy the web service in a virtual directory in the production servers, such avoiding the need of updating DNS etc etc (the domain is maintained elsewhere, we are only host for this initiative).

Then when we switched in the production environment, the banner loaded from other domains… simply did not call anything but the web service WSDL.

After one “panic hour” without understanding where the problem was, and modifying in every known way the crossdomain.xml file, it came to my mind that maybe the problem was the virtual directory.

We moved as fast as possible everything in a new domain by itself and – MAGIC – now everything works.

So when dealing with swf that need to access server resources – never use virtual directories!!!

Bye

Networking and Volume Icons in notification area

Sometimes, for reasons that are obscure to me, the networking and volume icons in the notification area disappear, and there is no way to have them back, as the corresponding check boxes in the Notification Area panel are greyed out and not clickable. Note, I’m running Windows Vista Business edition, do not know if this solution applies to all Vista flavours.

There are different ways to solve this, through Policy editing, or through registry hacking.

I prefer the registry way, it’s simpler and faster: you only have to be careful.

The solution is simply to remove the registry keys named

- HideSCAVolume

- HideSCANetwork

from:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

Hope this helps!