How To: Disable Shutdown Event Tracker - Overclock.net

kc-tr · 02-28-07

For those who are not familiar with this, or are relatively new to Windows Server 2003, you may notice every time you shut down or restart the computer you get this annoying "Shutdown Event Tracker" and would like to simply be able to reboot or shutdown the machine without it.

This guide will tell you how to disable this feature!

This is the shutdown event tracker.

A default Windows Server 2003 will require this information to be filled out every time the machine is shut down, or restarted.

To disable this feature proceed with the following.

Step 1:
Go to Start>Run then type gpedit.msc

This will bring up the GPO Group Policy Object Editor Console.

Once this is open proceed to Computer Configuration>Administrative Templates>System as shown below. Once there you will find the Object for Shutdown Event tracking. Double click on the object to open its properties Window.

Once in the properties page Select the radio button that says "Disabled" then press "Apply" then "Ok" to close the Object Properties Window.

Once this is done go ahead and close the Group Policy Object Editor Console.

Ok it has been disabled however is not set to work just yet. Now you want to do the following.

Go to Start>Run and run the following command
gpupdate /force

This will force windows to update this policy at the time you make the change rather than waiting for the machine to restart. Now that you have done all of this go ahead and attempt to restart or shutdown the Server/Computer that this is running on. You should be greeted by this beautiful screen

You are now done. Enjoy.

Thanks to Xavier1421 for making this a sticky!

Ictinike · 02-28-07

Very nice and thank you.. I have this on my servers at my workplace and I hate filling in for some shmuck in corporate who doesn't have a clue to what I type and why I'm bouncing a box.. This saves me the hassel -- for a short while

kc-tr · 02-28-07

I knew it would be helpful to someone! Specially since there are alot of us who are now running Server 2k3 on our gaming rigs because it is so stable

Ictinike · 02-28-07

Hehe.. well I wish I could use our servers for gaming

Works like a charm, just did it to 2 of our corporate clusters.. ahh freedom AGAIN!

kc-tr · 02-28-07

Nice! It sure is helpful to have it off, unless it is like a critical machine that NEED's to have it on, but otherwise its just something that is a major inconvenience