asked on 5/17/2011

Remotely log a user off a Windows XP machine

We have many computers that are used by multiple people and occasionally someone locks their PC when they leave and the next user can't log in. Right now, we'd have to either reboot the PC or log in and then log off it can be used again. Wondering if there is a simple command line prompt that will do such a thing. We use shutdown -r -m \\computername to reboot a PC but is there something like logoff \\computername that will log the user currently on that computer off?

Microsoft DOS Windows XP

Last Comment

CCFD1Bill

5/17/2011

Daniel Van Der Werken

5/17/2011

Will Shutdown work?
c:\>shutdown /?

Usage: shutdown [-i | -l | -s | -r | -a] [-f] [-m \\computername] [-t xx] [-c "comment"] [-d up:xx:yy]

        No args                 Display this message (same as -?)
        -i                      Display GUI interface, must be the first option
        -l                      Log off (cannot be used with -m option)
        -s                      Shutdown the computer
        -r                      Shutdown and restart the computer
        -a                      Abort a system shutdown
        -m \\computername       Remote computer to shutdown/restart/abort
        -t xx                   Set timeout for shutdown to xx seconds
        -c "comment"            Shutdown comment (maximum of 127 characters)
        -f                      Forces running applications to close without warning
        -d [u][p]:xx:yy         The reason code for the shutdown
                                u is the user code
                                p is a planned shutdown code
                                xx is the major reason code (positive integer less than 256)
                                yy is the minor reason code (positive integer less than 65536)

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Daniel Van Der Werken

5/17/2011

sorry. I didn't see that you already use shutdown.

CCFD1Bill

5/17/2011

ASKER

Yeah, the -l (log off) won't work with the -m (that specifies the computer name).

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yobri

5/17/2011

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brutaldev

5/17/2011

Because you can't use SHUTDOWN to log off a user remotely, you can to run the command as if you were on the machine. The utility of choice to do this is PsExec. To execute the logoff on the remote machine use something like this:

PsExec.exe \\computername -u "remoteusername" -p "remotepassword" shutdown -l -f

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This will execute SHUTDOWN as if you were the logged on user on that machine.

yobri

5/17/2011

Download link for PSTools:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896649

CCFD1Bill

5/17/2011

ASKER

I'll check those out but, optimally, would like a solution that doesn't require an install.

brutaldev

5/17/2011

PsExec and PsShutdown are stand alone executables with no dependencies, no install, just have it in your path to execute it from command prompt.

yobri

5/17/2011

Yes, excellent (or super excellent) administrator tools to have which are obtained from the Microsoft site.

CCFD1Bill

5/17/2011

ASKER

Since we don't always know the user's password to use psexec.exe, psshutdown did the trick. Thanks!