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Accepted
pepoluan
Asked: 2014-09-10 01:03:00 +0800 CST

Windows Server 2012 R2 Shutdown Event Tracker Details

  • 772

Call me masochist, but I actually like entering the details when shutting down a server.

Windows Server 2012 R2 doesn't seem to provide a field to do that, though.

Is there any way to add "reason" for shutdown via the GUI, not via command line?

windows-server-2012-r2

3 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Shutdown.exe still ships with the new versions of Windows.

    Simply run:

    shutdown /i

    and the following prompt will appear, allowing you to shutdown/reboot 1 or more servers with a Reason comment:

    enter image description here

    • 5

  2. That's a good habit, congrats.

    The traditional way to enable/disable the Shutdown Event Tracker through a Group Policy setting (Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System / Display Shutdown Event Tracker) does not seem to work anymore. The GUI does not seem to offer this functionality anymore.

    Your options are to use the shutdown.exe with /c parameter to specify a comment, or use the Write-EventLog PowerShell command to write your reason and then reboot.

    Additionally, I would expect the Stop-Computer / Restart-Computer cmdlets to offer some way to specify a reason but they don't seem to have any parameter for that.

    • 2

  3. If you want your traditional shutdown dialog back, just press Alt + F4 on your desktop. Hope it helps.

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