How To Remotely Shutdown Windows XP Computers from a Linux Server

As a budget cutback, our school administrators asked us to shutdown all non-essential classroom computers at night to save electricity. I teach Linux in a classroom that has a Dell Poweredge 2850 Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL5) server and 29 Dell Optiplex 745 student lab computers running Microsoft Windows XP SP3 as the host operating system and VMWare Server to provide virtual Linux machines for our classes. I researched on the Internet for the best solution to remotely shutdown the student lab computers at night. I was not able to find one post or how-to that completely answered my questions, but I was able to piece together a solution. In an effort to document this project and help others with similar needs, here are my notes on the project. Continue reading “How To Remotely Shutdown Windows XP Computers from a Linux Server

Migrating To 64-bit Windows 7 Professional From 32-bit Windows XP Professional

The Information Technology Departments in the Business/Public Service Division at Greenville Technical College where I teach subscribe to the MSDN Academic Alliance which provides our students and faculty free download versions of select Microsoft products. Starting in September 2009, we were able to download either the 32-bit or 64-bit versions of Windows 7 Professional. Jumping on the opportunity to install Microsoft’s latest operating system and move from 32-bit to a 64-bit data path, the week of October 12, 2009 I began migrating from Windows XP Professional Service Pack 3 to the new Windows 7 Professional. Continue reading “Migrating To 64-bit Windows 7 Professional From 32-bit Windows XP Professional