Tip:
Some companies attempt to solve this problem by placing
stickers near PC power buttons reminding users not to turn off
their PCs until Microsoft Windows tells them to do so.
This may sound really basic, but for
years I’ve seen small businesses incur truly substantial downtime
and emergency computer consulting expenses because users either
never were warned or forgot. However, here are two exceptions to
this golden rule.
Automatic Power Off for Shutdown Windows
First, many PCs and Microsoft Windows versions
support power management standards that allow the operating system
actually to turn off the PC automatically when you choose the Shut
Down command from the Start Menu.
This convenience was initially a nice
enhancement on notebook computers, but it now has filtered its way
down to most new desktop PCs as well.
Problematic System Hang-ups on Shutdown Windows
Second, many times a PC, particularly if
running an operating system from the Microsoft Windows 9x consumer
product line, refuses to gracefully shut down.
Rather, the PC stalls out on the “Please wait
while shutting down” message. Instead of simply ignoring this
condition and powering the PC off before they’re told it’s safe,
your users should be trained to alert the internal guru or computer
consultant to this problem so the real difficulty can be determined
and fixed.
Not following these procedures can lead to a
loss of unsaved data, operating system damage or complete PC boot-up
failure.
Obviously, ignoring these best practices can be
detrimental to your company’s productivity and extremely harmful
to your small business computer support costs.
Automated shutdown or power off capabilities on PC
hardware
For the automated power-off capability to
work properly, both the operating system and PC hardware must
support the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI).
Microsoft’s operating systems started
widely supporting this standard around the time Microsoft
Windows 98 was released.
ACPI support for PC hardware usually is
built into the BIOS, a chip on your computer’s main system
board that acts as one of the main translators between the
hardware and software worlds. You usually can find out whether
a particular PC supports a certain level of ACPI-compliance by
reading through the technical specs on the PC vendor’s Web
site.
Shutdown Windows Desktop Action Items
Are your users trained and reminded not to
turn off their desktop PC and notebooks until Microsoft Windows
tells them to do so?
How many desktop PCs and notebooks in your
company support the ability to automatically power off through the
Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI)?
Do users know to contact the internal guru
or computer consultant any time their PC hangs on shutting down?
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