Shut It - (Now with Vista Support)
v1.1 for Windows 2000, XP and Vista.
Shut It is a shutdown monitor. In essence it monitors system shutdown requests via the WM_QUERYENDSESSION windows message. When it detects a shutdown, it will temporarily stop the shutdown until user interaction or a timeout period has elapsed. Shut It runs from a small icon in the system tray (beside the clock if visible).
I use multiple desktops and VMWare, and quite often I forget a VMware session is running in the background before its too late. Shut It is designed to give me a "last chance" before closing the session.
Reboots are not detected!?The WM_QUERYENDSESSION does not specify if a shutdown is a shutdown or reboot. There are ways around this but it would appear to require a lot of work for very little result. Instead what I have done is include a Reboot checkbox in the Shutdown Warning dialog which is available when a Shutdown (not a Logoff) is detected. Checking this will turn a Shutdown into a Reboot, failing to check it will turn a Reboot into a Shutdown etc.
Shut It v1.1 now supports Windows Vista, and uses new Vista API calls if available. Unfortunately due to changes in the shutdown process under Vista, the system can not perform Actions with timeouts (Abort, Continue, Hibernate and Standby) as once the shutdown is stopped user interaction is required.
Prior to the Shutdown Warning dialog, Vista will display its own warning similar to one pictured below.
Hibernation needs to be enabled in the Windows Control Panel Power Options applet. If Hiberation is not enabled, and is requested, the system will Standby/Suspend instead.
What are Shutdown Checks?During a Shutdown request, Shut It will scan (most of) the system process names and window titles. If any of these match existing user defined matches the system will perform the Shutdown Check detected Action. Otherwise the system will perform the No Shutdown Checks detected action.
Actions
On detecting a Shutdown, Shut It can run one of a number of predefined actions:
If a timeout of 0 (seconds) is specified, the Warning Dialog will never display and the chosen action will run immediately.
Select the Task List or Wnd List buttons from the Shutdown Checks property page from the Shut It properties dialog. Not all process names are available by default (from what you see in Task Manager) - so I'm only listing the ones that return a process name. Window Titles/Captions are displayed from the Wnd List button, those Windows "bolded" are visible ones (a lot of windows can exist on a system that are never visible).
Shutdown Check - Equals, Contains, Left Compare, Right Compare.
All string comparisons are case insensitive.
Equals is otherwise a complete match (i.e. Notepad = NoTePaD).
Contains looks for substrings (e.g. tep = noTEPad).
Left Compare and Right Compare - compare the details from the left and right of the string respectively.
A Scheduled Shutdown allows you to specify a time in minutes or a specified time to attempt a system shutdown (or logoff, hibernate or suspend). Additionally you may specify an idle timeout. If you do, the idle timeout is only checked after the Scheduled Shutdown (timer) has triggered. For instance if you register a Scheduled Shutdown for 30 minutes and an Idle Timeout of 10 minutes, the idle count will only start once the 30 minute timeout has expired. Subsequently the idle timeout will stay active until it executes or is cancelled.
Any support issues, bugs etc., drop me an email .
LicenceFreeware. Supplied on an "As Is" (use at your own risk) basis.