Reboot or Shutdown does not work

Be sure to read the 2 related FAQs:

• Disable Reboot and Shutdown for Users
• Enable Reboot and Shutdown for Users

Unfortunately Shutdown or Reboot does not always work, because:

New hardware, old Windows,
new Windows, old hardware...

For all kind of reasons, hardware vendors, together with Microsoft and other software companies, do define new specifications for hardware, power, bios, etc.

UEFI is an example of a specification which is related to this problem. Older hardware might not adhere to the latest UEFI specifications, while a modern version of Windows do expects this.

The reverse is also applicable: an old version of Windows, for example Windows XP or Windows 7, might not have the drivers suitable for a modern piece of hardware including modern ACPI, UEFI, modern bios, etc, with the result that this "old" Windows is not able to shutdown or reboot the server properly.

AADServer might help a bit with this problem:

Behind the buttons "Reboot" and "Shutdown" is some logic that attempts to do the Reboot / Shutdown job in 3 different ways:

• Windows XP: In total this might take up to 130 seconds.
• All newer Windows versions: In total this might take up to 90 seconds.

A proper Shutdown / Reboot is important

It is still (very much) desirable to do a proper Reboot / Shutdown when working with Windows, because otherwise files, disk, registry, etc, might get damaged if Windows is not shutdown / rebooted in a proper way.

If your default Windows buttons / menu for Reboot or Shutdown do not work properly, use the AADS buttons in AADS Control for Reboot / Shutdown, and see if the AADS buttons do work OK and do indeed Reboot / Shutdown the server. Again, it might take up to 90 seconds before AADS has found a way to Reboot or Shutdown the server properly.

Virtualization

Virtualization attempts to mimic virtual hardware, including the same details as mentioned here above: ACPI, UEFI, bios, etc.

Virtualization can bring the benefit that you might be able to choose between:

• Mimic old hardware suitable to old Windows
• Mimic new hardware suitable to most recent Windows

Please consult the manual and / or website of the Virtualization software on how to handle this issue.

Example:

When running Windows 10 inside a VM, using an "old" Virtualbox host, it might be required to choose "Minimal" for the Paravirtualization interface. Otherwise Windows 10 will not boot.