When restarting a remote NT based server from the gui, NT stops any remote administration service (eg WinVNC/PC-Anywhere/BO etc) that you have running. If the machine fails to reboot cleanly (say a dialog box appears during shutdown) and your remote administration service has stopped you are fuxored. I work from home most of the time and so I object to having to get dressed to go and see sick servers .

To get around this problem I wanted to write a program to implicitly force a reboot from the command line. By 'force a reboot' I mean telling the system to shut down ignoring any dialog boxes, errors, tasks waiting to complete or other anomalies, and restart regardless. This was intended to be an application of last resort, but I have had it implemented on my own servers for a couple of months now and it has been so successful that I made it policy to do all server reboots using this command line app - rather than attempting a shutdown via the gui first.

Notes on the code

This program uses the windows APIs. Because of this you could write it in any number of languages, but the example below is given in Visual Basic. Also I can't take 100% credit for the code - A lot of the API stuff is cut and pasted from API reference sites such as www.vbapi.com, but I have stitched it all together, added comments and the command line interface.

If you're going to try to get this code working in VB you'll have to create a new project containing just one .bas module and add a reference to "Visual Basic for Applications". This is for the retrieval of command line parameters. Then copy and paste the code listed below into your module.

Retrieving the O/S type

This code is only meant to run on versions of WinNT. So first of all we have to have a little bit of sanity checking. Is this a WinNT box? We can use the GetVersionEx API to get the version of our target operating system. The IsWinNT() function populates the myos value (of OSVERSIONINFO type) with information about the target operating system. If the target system is an NT box the following statement (and therefore the IsWinNT() function) will return true:
Code:
Private Const VER_PLATFORM_WIN32_NT = 2
...
IsWinNT = (myOS.dwPlatformId = VER_PLATFORM_WIN32_NT)
Setting shutdown privileges for the current thread

Ok. Now we know that the target system is NT we need to set the priveledges on our application so that we can shut down the system. To do this we use the GetCurrentProcess, LookupPrivilegeValue and AdjustTokenPrivileges APIs. The EnableShutDown subroutine uses the GetCurrentProcess API to get the handle for the current process and assign that process with permission to shutdown the system. I won't go into this too much here because I document this rather heavily in the code.

Retreiving user input from the command line

Sub main splits command line parameters, which are stored in the command$ variable, into an array using space as the deliminator. The code checks for two parameters, the action (valid options are logoff/reboot/shutdown prefaced by either - or /) and a boolean force variable (similarly prefaced) that decides whether or not to force the selected action. This bit of the code requires a reference to Visual Basic for Application so as to access the script host.

Forcing a reboot

The ShutDownNT procedure accepts the Flags parameter that specifies the action to be taken. The actual action taken by the ExitWindowsEx API contained in the ShutDownNT procedure is defined by assigning the sum of the following constants to the passed Flags variable:
Code:
Private Const EWX_LOGOFF = 0
Private Const EWX_SHUTDOWN = 1
Private Const EWX_REBOOT = 2
Private Const EWX_FORCE = 4
So for example the flags required for a forced reboot would be:
Code:
Private Const EWX_LOGOFF = 0
Private Const EWX_SHUTDOWN = 1
Private Const EWX_REBOOT = 2
Private Const EWX_FORCE = 4
...
flags = (EWX_FORCE + EWX_REBOOT)
'or flags = 4 + 2
The code!

Code:
Option Explicit

Private Const action_REBOOT = 1
Private Const action_LOGOFF = 2
Private Const action_SHUTDOWN = 3

'API constants
Private Const EWX_LOGOFF = 0
Private Const EWX_SHUTDOWN = 1
Private Const EWX_REBOOT = 2
Private Const EWX_FORCE = 4
Private Const TOKEN_ADJUST_PRIVILEGES = &H20
Private Const TOKEN_QUERY = &H8
Private Const SE_PRIVILEGE_ENABLED = &H2
Private Const ANYSIZE_ARRAY = 1
Private Const VER_PLATFORM_WIN32_NT = 2

'API structures
Public Type OSVERSIONINFO
    dwOSVersionInfoSize As Long
    dwMajorVersion As Long
    dwMinorVersion As Long
    dwBuildNumber As Long
    dwPlatformId As Long
    szCSDVersion As String * 128
End Type

Public Type LUID
    LowPart As Long
    HighPart As Long
End Type

Public Type LUID_AND_ATTRIBUTES
    pLuid As LUID
    Attributes As Long
End Type

Public Type TOKEN_PRIVILEGES
    PrivilegeCount As Long
    Privileges(ANYSIZE_ARRAY) As LUID_AND_ATTRIBUTES
End Type

'API Declarations
Private Declare Function GetCurrentProcess Lib "kernel32.dll" () As Long

Private Declare Function OpenProcessToken Lib "advapi32.dll" _
(ByVal ProcessHandle As Long, ByVal DesiredAccess As Long, _
TokenHandle As Long) As Long

Private Declare Function LookupPrivilegeValue Lib "advapi32.dll" _
Alias "LookupPrivilegeValueA" (ByVal lpSystemName As String, _
ByVal lpName As String, lpLuid As LUID) As Long

Private Declare Function AdjustTokenPrivileges Lib "advapi32.dll" _
(ByVal TokenHandle As Long, ByVal DisableAllPrivileges As Long, _
NewState As TOKEN_PRIVILEGES, ByVal BufferLength As Long, _
PreviousState As TOKEN_PRIVILEGES, ReturnLength As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function ExitWindowsEx Lib "user32.dll" _
(ByVal uFlags As Long, ByVal dwReserved As Long) As Long

Private Declare Function GetVersionEx Lib "kernel32.dll" _
Alias "GetVersionExA" (ByRef lpVersionInformation As OSVERSIONINFO) As Long


Sub Main()
   Dim a_strArgs() As String
   Dim i As Integer
   Dim Force As Boolean
   Dim Action As Integer
   Dim Flags as Long
   
   'Sanity checking to see if the target system is NT
   If IsWinNT = True Then
    'Reset system variables
    Force = False
    Action = 0

    'Split the contents of the command$ variable into the a_strArgs array
    'using [space] as the deliminator.
    a_strArgs = Split(Command$, " ")
    'Iterate throught the a_strArgs array
    For i = LBound(a_strArgs) To UBound(a_strArgs)
       Select Case LCase(a_strArgs(i))
       Case "-logoff", "/logoff"
        Action = action_LOGOFF
       Case "-reboot", "/reboot"
        Action = action_REBOOT
       Case "-shutdown", "/shutdown"
        Action = action_SHUTDOWN
       Case "-force", "/force", "/f", "-f"
          Force = True
       Case Else
          Exit Sub
       End Select
     Next i
  End If
    
    'If an action has been set then enable the shutdown priveledges
    'on this process
    If Action > 0 Then
      EnableShutDown
    Else
      'No action has been selected so terminate
      Exit Sub
    End If
    
    'Calculate the sum of the required flags and pass this as a 
    'parameter to the ShutDownNT procedure.
    if force = true then flags = EWX_FORCE
    Select Case Action
      Case action_LOGOFF
        flags = flags + EWX_LOGOFF
	ShutDownNT(flags)
      Case action_REBOOT
	flags = flags + EWX_LOGOFF
        ShutDownNT(flags)
      Case action_SHUTDOWN
	flags = flags + EWX_LOGOFF
        ShutDownNT(flags)
    End Select

End Sub

Public Function IsWinNT() As Boolean
    Dim myOS As OSVERSIONINFO

    'I think I pretty much covered this above
    myOS.dwOSVersionInfoSize = Len(myOS)
    GetVersionEx myOS
    IsWinNT = (myOS.dwPlatformId = VER_PLATFORM_WIN32_NT)
End Function

'set the shut down privilege for the current application
Private Sub EnableShutDown()
    Dim hProc As Long
    Dim hToken As Long
    Dim mLUID As LUID
    Dim mPriv As TOKEN_PRIVILEGES
    Dim mNewPriv As TOKEN_PRIVILEGES

    'Get the process ID of the this process 
    'and place it in the hproc variable
    hProc = GetCurrentProcess()

    'Open the hProc process and lookup the 
    'SeShutdownPrivilege value
    OpenProcessToken hProc, TOKEN_ADJUST_PRIVILEGES + TOKEN_QUERY, hToken
    LookupPrivilegeValue "", "SeShutdownPrivilege", mLUID
    
    'Create a  new set of priveledges in the mPriv variable
    'of token priveledges type
    mPriv.PrivilegeCount = 1
    mPriv.Privileges(0).Attributes = SE_PRIVILEGE_ENABLED
    mPriv.Privileges(0).pLuid = mLUID
    
    ' enable shutdown privilege for the current application
    AdjustTokenPrivileges hToken, False, mPriv, _
    4 + (12 * mPriv.PrivilegeCount), mNewPriv, _
    4 + (12 * mNewPriv.PrivilegeCount)
End Sub

' Shut Down NT
Public Sub ShutDownNT(Flags as Long)
    ExitWindowsEx Flags, 0
End Sub
If you want to get a copy of this app without the bother of compiling it yourself you can download a zipped copy from my public FTP server at ftp://195.8.181.206/SimonSoft/shutdown.zip

Whilst every care is taken to ensure that files on this FTP are virus and error free you are advised to scan any files you download. Usage is entirely at your own risk. If you use any other software from this server and intent to keep it please support it's creators by buying a valid licence.

If you enjoyed this tutorial have a look at these:
Scripting Internet Connections Under Window$
Securing an installation of IIS 4. (No, seriously)
Remote DSN Connections, using WinAPIs and the registry