Powerchute Network Shutdown with Win7 (messages)

[Anonymous user]

Hi,

We have a SmartUPS 1500 with NMC V2. It protects a Windows Home Server2011 on one machine and two PC's running Windows 7 64bit Ultimate. The network shutdown side of Powerchute 301 works fine, the machines shut down ok but only the Windows Home Server  box gets a message popup warning. Now, I understand that this is due to Windows 7 having the messenger service removed but is there a workaround that might be able to give me that functionality back on the Win7 boxes?

Regards,

Jeff.

[BillP]

Hi Jeff,

I have heard of customers using 3rd party messenger services for this as a workaround. To my knowledge, none of these 3rd party messenger applications have been tested by us for use with PCNS. One such application is called Winsent. 

Regards,

B

[BillP]

Jeff,

I tested winsent and found it to be unreliable.  I decided to write a quick command file that uses msg.exe This command file will work on any system the has Windows msg.exe enabled e.g  Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8.

Here are the contents of the command file with comments. It can be copied and pasted to a text file and then saved with the .cmd file extension

@echo OFF
:: provided free of charge with no support or warranty "As Is"

:: This command file will post the last PowerChute event to the desktop

copy c:"\program files\APC\PowerChute\group1\EventLog.txt" c:\temp\Error.txt

:: This section reads Error.txt and save the info to a variable
setlocal enabledelayedexpansion
for /f "tokens=*" %%a in (c:\temp\Error.txt) do (
set temp=%%a
)

:: This line post the info saved in the variable temp to the desktop via msg.exe
msg.exe * /time 30 !temp!

How this works is the command file will copy the EventLog.txt file in  C:\Program Files\APC\PowerChute\group1 (I am assuming PowerChute has been installed to the default path). to C:\temp\Error.txt. Then it reads Error.txt and posts the last line of text to the desktop using msg.exe for 30 seconds. I figured having the error message visible for 30 seconds was sufficient.

The command can be enable for any event you would like to see a message for by enabling command file execution for the desired event/s. One issue, if you enabled the command file for UPS On Battery event and also enabled it for Input Power Restored, if the message box that informs the user that the UPS is on battery has not been closed the restored message is not visible. Example: put UPS on battery and a message appears stating the UPS is on battery.  After 10 seconds input power is restored to the UPS. The UPS On Battery event message remains visible and the cleared message is not visible until the On Battery initial pop up is closed by the user or until it times out (been open for 30 seconds).

Hope this helps.

[Anonymous user · Accepted solution]

Thanks everyone 🙂

I too tried Winsent and the other third party messenger replacements with no success but Bill, thank you so much, this looks like it might actually be the answer I have been looking for.

I'll try it out this weekend and let you now how I get on.

Thanks once again.

Jeff.