Disable the Shutdown Event Tracker in Windows 2003
Shutdown Event Tracker provides a way for System Administrators and IT professionals to track and log why a servers are being restarted or shut down. It gathers the reasons users/administrators give for restarts and shutdowns to help create a comprehensive picture of an organization’s system environment.
The whole idea behind the shutdown event tracker is that a server isn’t meant to be restarted or shutdown regularly. Therefore, when it is, administrators should keep a log of why the machine was powered down. However this feature is not suitable to all server mainly those who are restarted remotely without using the windows interface.
Shutdown Event Tracker is enabled by default and supported on all Windows Server 2003 family of operating systems.
To disable Shutdown Event Tracker perform the following:
1. Log in as administrator
2. Run gpedit.msc (group policy manager) in command prompt
3. Go to Computer Configuration –> Administrative Templates –> System
4. Double-click Display shutdown event tracker
5. Change to Disable.
6. Will take effect after reboot. If you want the changes to take affect immediately with a restart, refresh the GPO by running the following command: gpupdate /force
