Disable the shutdown window on windows 2003

Some of us will have had enough of having to enter a reason every time they want to restart or shutdown their Windows 2003 Server.

This new function was first seen with the arrival of Windows XP Professional, Windows XP Tablet PC and Windows XP Media Centre, with the option being disabled by default. This is not exactly the same for Windows 2003 servers with the option being active by default. Of course this can be useful to help follow your work environment needs and problems, although it is not possible to disable this if you want.

But, there are always other way, and here is how:

Click Start, Run and type gpedit.msc. Click OK and you will have access to the Group Policy Editor.

Deploy this as follows:

• Computer configuration
• Administration templates
• System

In the right hand window, double click on the “Display Shutdown Event Tracker”, select “Disable” and click OK to save the changes.

You can close the Group Policy object editor and the change will have immediately taken effect without having to restart the server.

Now, each time that you shutdown or restart the server you will see the classic shutdown window.

If you want more information about this then you can read the following Microsoft article:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/293814/en
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/WindowsServ/2003/...