Windows shutdown/reboot notifier giving the option to delay, similar to Automatic Update

windows

I have a windows program deployed using WPKG that runs hidden to the user, and may need to reboot sometimes. In order to prevent the user from losing work, I would like a dialog box with a message, giving the logged in user the option to delay the shutdown for a bit. This is something similar to the way Automatic Update does it.

I've looked at a multitude of shutdown utilities which give the user a message, but none which give them a little control to delay the shutdown.

Best Answer

A quick and dirty option would be to use PSSHUTDOWN in the PSTOOLS suite from Microsofts Sysinternals.

One of the switches available is -c. It allows the user to stop the reboot by pressing the Cancel button.

-c Allows the shutdown to be aborted by the interactive user.

You could set this to loop every X minutes until the user is ready to have their machine rebooted.

A neater way to do this would be to write your own VBscript. This could provide a snazzy dialog box offering, for example, Yes and No. If they clicked No, it would sleep for X minutes before asking again. This would be very easy to write.

Edit: Well, I was bored so I made the script for you. Enjoy.

option explicit
on error resume next

Dim strComputer, intRebootChoice
Dim objWMIService, objOperatingSystem
Dim colOperatingSystems 

strComputer = "."

do while 1>0
 intRebootChoice = msgbox("OI, you, need to reboot.  Choose No to be asked again 1 hour",308,"Reboot incoming")
 select case intRebootChoice
  case 6
   Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:" & "{impersonationLevel=impersonate,(Shutdown)}!\\" & strComputer & "\root\cimv2")
   Set colOperatingSystems = objWMIService.ExecQuery ("Select * from Win32_OperatingSystem")
   For Each objOperatingSystem in colOperatingSystems
    ObjOperatingSystem.Reboot(1)
   Next
  case 7
   wscript.sleep(3600000)
  case else
   'shenanigans'
 end select
loop
Related Topic