Rebooting the machine via shutdown.exe triggers the Shutdown Event Tracker

Question

I have a scheduled task that runs once a week which performs a simple reboot of the machine. The problem is that once the system is rebooted, it thinks that the last shutdown was unexpected and then it asks me to specify a reason for it.

This is the command that the Task Scheduler runs:

C:\Windows\System32\shutdown.exe /r /f /t 01 /d P:4:1

As you can see, I specified the d parameter to tell the system that the reason for the shutdown is "Application: Maintenance (Planned)". The OS in question is Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard.

Interesting enough is that I used to have the exact same task on a different machine running Windows Server 2003 and I wasn't experiencing this issue.

Turning off the Shutdown Event Tracker is not an option.

Solution

I usually do shutdown /s /f /t 0 and get away with it, or perhaps specify a reason with /d.

This does not result in a reason window for me, so that means your shutdown is experiencing issues.

---

Your first stop should be the event log, see what it mentions about your shutdown.

You should be troubleshooting why your computer doesn't shutdown properly, more specifically what application/service/driver is causing the improper shutdown. Because your command is correct.

Troubleshooting shutdown is a tricky thing to do, check if the same occurs in safe mode as a good start!

Comments

[spidEY]

The only relevant item in the Event Viewer is "The previous system shutdown at 4:29:58 AM on ‎1/‎27/‎2012 was unexpected.". Apart from that, there is noting else of interest. If I restart through the Start Menu this doesn't happen. Looking at the task history, it doesn't always record that the action completed, but the restart still goes through.

[Tamara Wijsman]

Does it work in Safe Mode? Somehow your shutdown is broken...