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I know that there are threads about this, I found this one: How to schedule a task to run when shutting down windows but it fails for me.

I wrote a little program in LabView and made an exe out of it. It runs perfect when I double click the exe in normal windows operation (it takes just a few seconds to complete). Then I put the exe in a batch file and that batch file in the group policy as a shutdown script. The result is that the computer hangs when shuting down. It shows the shutdown screen for minutes and I have to power cycle the PC to start it again. I even tried only a simple file copy command in the batch file with the same result. What am I doing wrong? Any hints are greatly welcome

Thanks a lot

Martin

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Mr_M_from_G
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  • Why do you use a batch file to run a single executable? That is not necessary. Just specify your executable with full path in the task executed on shutdown. Your question cannot be answered with seeing the real content of the batch file and knowing what your executable does and which environment it requires. Does your application or your unnecessary batch file depend on environment variables or current working directory on execution? – Mofi Jan 30 '15 at 14:00

2 Answers2

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I had to enable another option to make my AutoHotKey script (which i compiled into an .exe) before shutdown. The script would open an Excel file and add some values. In order to make it work I also had to enable the "Specify maximum wait time for Group Policy Scripts".

Just to make it more clear all the steps I had to do in Windows 10 set to UK English:

  1. Open Edit Group policy, by typing it into the Windows start menu for example.
  2. Go to Local Group Policy > Windows Setings > Scripts (Startup/Shutdown) > Shutdown
  3. Add your .exe here.
  4. Close window by clicking on OK.
  5. Go to Local Group Policy > Adminstrative Templates > System > Scripts
  6. Enable Display instructions in shutdown as they run.
  7. Enable Specify maximum wait time for Group Policy scripts. I set mine to 5000 ms.

Whenever I shutdown I first see the "Shutting down" and then the screen becomes black, it runs the script (opening Excel), closes Excel and then really shuts down.

Roald
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thank you for your answer, it made me try some more things and now I was successful. I want to give some results here, maybe they help someone else:

  • Additional to the group policy where you specify the exe that shall run before shutdown there is another usefull setting that can be made in gpedit (I have a german Win 7 so maybe the names are not exactly what you have): computer configuration - adminstrative templates - system - scripts: there you find "run scripts at shutdown visible". If this is not activated you will not see what the computer does during shutdown. Not activated is the default
  • in gpedit under computer configuration - windows settings - scripts: shutdown you can insert as the script name a *.exe or if you want to run a batchfile use cmd.exe and enter as parameter /C "full path to batch\batchname.bat" (you need the /C and the quotes !!). In the thread mentioned in my question Dan Stevens says, giving the batchname.bat as the script name directly does not work. I didn't try this.

It's really nice to see my small program run just before shutdown

Thanks again for your help

Martin

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