Post-startup & Pre-Login shutdown

Question

Is there a way [using a batch file] that I can set a system to shutdown PRE-login
but POST-startup? I've tried a scheduled task to run this batch file with the
"/SC ONSTART" flag .. That didn't work. I've tried various registry entries and
couldn't find one that works.

Basically I've created a batch file to perform maintenance with zero user interaction.
One of the actions it performs is setting a "CHKDSK /R" to run on restart, it outputs
a SEPARATE batch file which will delete itself & shut the system down.

I want this separate batch file to run after chkdsk but before the user logs in
that way it still requires zero user interaction... The primary OS this will be
used on is Windows XP Professional.

Thanks much!

Answer 1

Startup scripts are what you want.

Do something like this:

• Create a directory, say, "%SystemRoot%\StartupScriptFlags"
• Grant "Users" "Modify" permission that that directory
• Make a script to drop a file called "DiskMaintenance" in that folder. Give users rights to run that script.
• Assign the startup script below to the machine.

    @echo off
    if exist "%SystemRoot%\StartupScriptFlags\DiskMaintenance" call :_disk_maintenance
    goto end

    rem Run CHKDSK and delete flag
    :_disk_maintenance
    rem Run chkdsk, etc
    del "%SystemRoot%\StartupScriptFlags\DiskMaintenance"

    :end

You could supply additional "flag files" in that directory to do Other Stuff^TM down the road, I suppose.

Answer 2

Use Group Policy to assign a startup script. Startup scripts run at boot. Login scripts run at login. That should help you.