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I've got a very strange problem. On the net I can only find problems with Server 2003 pc's, that reboot instead of shutting down, but in my case... (go figure) it does the opposite. When I choose to reboot, the system shutdown.

Yes I am sure I used the reboot button. It happens via start ==> reboot and it happens when clicking on the reboot button when the update's have been installed.

Nothing changed to the system's hardware. Only update's have been installed on the system.

I did notice something odd in the logs when rebooting: Description: Timed out sending notification of target device change to window of "C:\WINDOWS\Explorer.EXE" KB: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/924390 They talk about a removable drive, but in my case, it's explorer.exe :s it appears 4 times.

OS: Windows Server 2003 R2. Services: AD, DNS, DHCP, WSUS.

Thanks in advance!

Greetings from Belgium Shane

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  • Have you checked the firmware for the server? Is it only occuring to the one server?
    – Lima
    Jul 6, 2009 at 8:28
  • 1
    What happens if you manually run: SHUTDOWN -r -t 01 Jul 6, 2009 at 8:29
  • Hmm, haven't done that. System was installed before I was in the company (3 years ago). I'm not to trilled to update the firmware if everything was working perfect before. Going to check for a firmware update thanks for the tip! Jul 6, 2009 at 8:40
  • Hi Jeremy, I will let you know as soon as I can shutdown the server. Jul 6, 2009 at 8:41
  • What happens if you close the explorer.exe shell, (make sure it's closed), run task manager>run>cmd, and run the shutdown command?. If this successfully reboots the machine, you might want to use that hotfix MS is talking about.
    – l0c0b0x
    Jul 6, 2009 at 9:40

4 Answers 4

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Are you physically on the server, or running RDP? I've found that funky things happen with reboots unless you're connected in "console" mode. To get this, you'll need to run mstsc /admin (Vista) or mstsc /console (XP)

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  • I am connected via RDP. I'll try your tip out! Jul 9, 2009 at 10:34
  • David, I think you are right on this one! Recently I've rebooted the server in the firm on a XP machine via RDP. But from home... I rebooted the machine with the Mac client from microsoft for RDP. The server rebooted just fine when doing it via xp... I will look into this. This could be a bug :) Aug 27, 2009 at 17:51
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It's possible that one of those updates affected your server's shutdown sequence. On the sight of a bad shutdown/reboot, most machines by default are supposed to reboot (Windows is designed to reboot on a critical failure). If this setting is unchecked ("Automatically restart"), I'm not sure but could be possible that the machine processes a shutdown instead of a nice restart. I can't prove this right now though.

Update: You could also try it from the command line too as Jeremy suggested, but run it without the explorer shell running (explorere.exe). Make sure it's closed, run task manager>run>cmd, and run the restart command. If this successfully reboots the machine, you might want to use that hotfix MS is talking about.

Also, here you can find some more troubleshooting ideas for shutdown/restart issues: http://www.aumha.org/win5/a/shtdwnxp.php

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(source: windowsnetworking.com)

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  • Just checked, the system is set to automatically restart. I'm also thinking that an update caused this, only question is: which one? Looking for a needle in a hay stack. Jul 6, 2009 at 9:07
  • You could also try it from the command line too as Jeremy suggested, but run it without the explorer shell running (explorere.exe). Make sure it's closed, run task manager>run>cmd, and run the restart command. If this successfully reboots the machine, you might want to use that hotfix MS is talking about. I read somewhere it might be related with an issue with explorer.exe's end-process sequence, this would be a way to find that out.
    – l0c0b0x
    Jul 6, 2009 at 20:42
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AFAIK the option to install updates and restart dont exist.

If you choose to install updates, you can only choose "install updates and shutdown". a restart doesn't install the updates (from windows update).

Or did I misunderstand your definition of "updates"?

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  • I manually install update's (the famous yellow shield icon). I click on it, choose the option to selected the update's. Let them install and then when it's done, I choose reboot (it give's you 2 options: ok or reboot). Sorry for the weird sentences, english ain't my native language. Jul 6, 2009 at 8:53
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Most likely your ACPI got a bit mixed up, look in the BIOS if by any chance there is something to customizes ACPI states, look for s2 being mapped to reboot. From an OS perspective the software is most likely performing the correct shutdown procedure.

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  • I will check. I've thought about the ACPI, but ruled that out, since nothing's changed to the settings but then again, it is a pc :p Thanks for the tip! Jul 6, 2009 at 9:59

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