We currently have over 700 laptops that are used on and off campus (majority are win7 some still xp). The majority of our users use hibernate and very rarely restart their laptops while on campus. The problem we are are encountering is that chagnes to computer group policies and software installation policies are not being applied to all devices. I would like to set a scheduled task to restart the laptops at a set time. Is it possible to have windows display a restart popup such as the one that windows update uses? this would be ideal as it gives the users the option to postpone so they are not forced to restart while busy but will be continually prompted until they do. Is this the best way to go about doing this? What other options are there that are effective?

Hi Whickson33, Thanks for posting in TechNet forum. Based on my known, in Task Scheduler, there's no such a setting to display a "restart popup" and have a option to postpone the task. There might be some third-party tools. You can set the task to automatically restart the computer during midnight. Or if you only want to update some Group Policies, automatically set the command gpupdate /force to excute is also an option. Regards, Miya TechNet Subscriber Support in forum. If you have any feedback on our support, please contact tngfb@microsoft.com This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. | Please remember to click "Mark as Answer" on the post that helps you, and to click "Unmark as Answer" if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

It definitely is possible, as I have a Samsung Win 7 laptop that does exactly what you want. Once a week, I get a dialog reminding me that is has been a week since the last reboot and allowing me to either reboot or dismiss the dialog. The question is how, and I suspect the answer is programming. I suggest you ask in this MSDN developer forum: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en/winforms/threads

Hi Wickson33, How's going now? As pvdg42 replied, it could be possible. So I suggest you find if there's any third-party software could help you because the task scheduler cannot do that. You can also develop one which seems much more complicated. And MSDN forum is a professional forum on development. Regards, Miya TechNet Subscriber Support in forum. If you have any feedback on our support, please contact tngfb@microsoft.com This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. | Please remember to click "Mark as Answer" on the post that helps you, and to click "Unmark as Answer" if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

I have decided to write my own app to do this. I went for a winodws from done in visual studio. made it look similar to the windows update restart prompt but with our colour scheme and logos on it and a more detailed message to the users. deployed it to some test clients and set a scheduled task in gp preferences to run it at given times. seems to be working qutie well, will deploy to all clients once the boss gives me the approval.

Hi Whickson33, Thanks for the feedback and glad you get your own app worked so quickly. Please feel free to ask new questions in TechNet forum if you have any other issue. Regards, Miya TechNet Subscriber Support in forum. If you have any feedback on our support, please contact tngfb@microsoft.comThis posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. | Please remember to click "Mark as Answer" on the post that helps you, and to click "Unmark as Answer" if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.