Windows Server 2003 Shutdown Event Tracker
It's pretty much safe to say that if you've got a Windows 2003 Server installation running,
you've had an experience with the Shutdown Event Tracker as shown:
While the Shutdown Event Tracker is actually a nice addition to Windows Server 2003, and one that is long over-due in my mind, it can become quite an annoyance—especially in a testing environment where server shutdowns are frequent and we really don't care to document them in the Event Logs (see Figure) or spend extra time being pestered to do so.
Before moving any further into the meat of this subject, let me clear up one thing: the Shutdown Event Tracker only comes into play when you are shutting down or restarting the server. Should you decide only to logoff a session, or to place a server in standby or hibernate (as your system supports), the Shutdown Event Tracker fields will be grayed out as shown.
Now, on with the rest of the story...
Enter Group Policy…
Group Policy is, in my mind, one of the single largest and most well thought out improvement that came when Windows 2000 hit the scene. The superb Group Policy system present in Windows 2000 has been added to and expanded upon with the release of both Windows XP Professional and Windows Server 2003. As you might have guessed by now, Group Policy comes to the rescue here allowing us to (thankfully) prevent the Shutdown Event Tracker from doing its job.
Disabling the Shutdown Event Tracker
Should you (like me) decide that you do not need the functionality provided by the Shutdown Event Tracker or if you just can't stand it, read on for the solution is at hand. Note that this procedure described the process to disable the Shutdown Event Tracker on a stand-alone server—you can easily perform the same task for a domain used a domain-based Group Policy.
1. If you do not already have a Local Group Policy MMC console created, open a blank MMC console by typing MMC from the command line. If you have a Local Group Policy MMC console, you can skip to Step 7.
2. From the empty console, click the File menu and select Add/Remove Snap-in
3. From the Add/Remove Snap-in page, click Add.
4. From the Add Standalone Snap-in page, click Group Policy, select Local Computer and click Finish.
5. From the Add Standalone Snap-in page, click Close.
6. From the Add/Remove Snap-in page, click OK.
7. Expand the nodes as shown in Figure 5 to locate the Display Shutdown Event Tracker Group Policy Object.
8. Double-click the Display Shutdown Event Tracker Group Policy Object and select Enabled. Change the drop-down selector to Never.
9. Click OK to accept the policy change.
10. Close out the MMC console, saving it if prompted to so.
11. To force the replication of Group Policy, enter the gpupdate command from the command line.
That's it. Pretty simple, huh? Now when we try to shutdown the computer, we get the more familiar shutdown dialog.
Should you later decide to put the Shutdown Event Tracker back into service, simply undo the changes you have made and refresh group policy using the gpupdate command once again.
