How to boot and shutdown a system via server

[Brendan18]

Hi,
I have a group of some dozen pc's in my office. Each runs on windows xp and shared a local network. Form that the four lcd monitors are placed at the entrance to provide general information to the incoming people. Here I want to set those four system in such a way that those system must boot on from the server. Then how can shut down them back after a specific period of time without any user intervention.

[Zachary]

You can boot a system through a server by setting up a pxe boot environment. This works on Tftp client. Here you will just need to add up the ip addresses of the system and then you can pass a boot command to the local computers. To do this first enable boot up on lan in the bios of each computer. Then get Tftp32 and set the configuration for the same.

[Big Fish]

To setup a network booting service you will need to do two things. First request a IP address through DHCP and then download a kernal through TFTP. Download TFTP32 tools and install it in your server. Then create a pxe folder. Download three files pxelinux.0, menu.c32, and memdisk form syslinux distribution and paste them in the pxe folder. These are the open source files. Then move your floppy drive image to the pxe folder. Create a sub-directory called pxelinux.cfg. Then create a file and name it default in the above folder. Edit the file as per your need which acts as boot menu configuration. Then run TFTP32. Click on DHCP server and enter prelinux.o inthe boot file. Fill all the columns in the fields as per your need. Select the targe computer and then set the boot priority order in it.

[Shen]

To shut down a remote computer you need to put some command in the cmd for windows. This is applicable to the server. First go to start menu and click on run. Then type cmd and hit enter. Type shutdown and press enter. CMD will show you a list of commands. You will need to give shutdown -m \\IP_FROM_THE_DESIRED_COMPUTER -s -c "Comment" -t TIME. This command will give the shutdown command to the remote computer and the system will turn off.