Patching at night, preventing sleep mode
Hello,
I have about a hundred Windows 7 laptops that I'd like to patch at night, while my users are logged off, but I'm running into a slight problem. I can successfully wake the laptops (most of which stay docked the vast majority of the time) with a WOL task, and then kick off a Detect and Deploy task shortly thereafter. My problem is that the machines will go to sleep after 15 minutes, which isn't enough time to finish all the patching (at least not initially, when many machines are way behind on patches). I'd like to be able to temporarily override the sleep setting so that I can be reasonably certain that the patching completes, but I don't want to change the power profile on the machines, since many users have customized their settings.
So, is there a way to temporarily disable sleep for a specific amount of time? I've seen a couple utilities like Insomnia and Caffeinated, but they seem designed with a GUI in mind, and don't seem to have any command line switches.
So far, the best idea offered up by a coworker is to set up a series of WOL scheduled tasks that will wake the machines every 15 minutes for a couple hours straight. This seems a little hacky to me, and isn't particularly easy to maintain, if I want to make changes.
Any thoughts?
I have about a hundred Windows 7 laptops that I'd like to patch at night, while my users are logged off, but I'm running into a slight problem. I can successfully wake the laptops (most of which stay docked the vast majority of the time) with a WOL task, and then kick off a Detect and Deploy task shortly thereafter. My problem is that the machines will go to sleep after 15 minutes, which isn't enough time to finish all the patching (at least not initially, when many machines are way behind on patches). I'd like to be able to temporarily override the sleep setting so that I can be reasonably certain that the patching completes, but I don't want to change the power profile on the machines, since many users have customized their settings.
So, is there a way to temporarily disable sleep for a specific amount of time? I've seen a couple utilities like Insomnia and Caffeinated, but they seem designed with a GUI in mind, and don't seem to have any command line switches.
So far, the best idea offered up by a coworker is to set up a series of WOL scheduled tasks that will wake the machines every 15 minutes for a couple hours straight. This seems a little hacky to me, and isn't particularly easy to maintain, if I want to make changes.
Any thoughts?
0 Comments
[ + ] Show comments
Answers (2)
Please log in to answer
Posted by:
cblake
12 years ago
AFAIK you can't temporariy override the sleep setting easily; you could write a script to collect the current power profile, store it, apply a different one, then reapply the original once a certain time threshhold was crossed. Just thinking out loud...
Other than that I like the idea of using a program like caffine/auto mouse mover, etc. because you could easily start the program, then stop the program at certain times.
Other than that I like the idea of using a program like caffine/auto mouse mover, etc. because you could easily start the program, then stop the program at certain times.
Posted by:
palmerEldritch
12 years ago
At the risk of hijacking my own thread, I'd just like to say that I'm finding the K1000 scripting to be extremely unreliable. I think I've found a solution to my original problem, but whenever I try to roll it out to a test machine, nothing happens. It worked the first couple times I tried it, but now the script never gets pushed to the client, let alone run at the scheduled time. I've run into this while testing several other scripts, too, and it's very frustrating. The test computer is definitely powered on and definitely connected to the K1000 (I can force an inventory update with no problem), but the script just doesn't get pushed. What further troubleshooting steps should I take?
Rating comments in this legacy AppDeploy message board thread won't reorder them,so that the conversation will remain readable.