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Using Task Scheduler to schedule recurring automatic reboot of Windows Server 2008R2

Use the steps below to schedule a task which can automatically reboot your Windows 2008 R2 server on a recurring basis.  Please beware that users that are logged on will be kicked off when the server reboots.

  1. Go to administrative tools, task scheduler.  
  2. Then right click on Task Scheduler and select Create Task
  3. Name the task, possibly something like “Reboot Weekly Saturday midnight”
  4. Change settings to run whether user is logged in or not.  Change User/Group and type in SYSTEM.
  5. On the Triggers tab, select New and fill in your schedule and make sure to check Enabled at bottom of screen
  6. On the Actions tab, select New, Start a program, and browse to “c:windowssystem32shutdown.exe” and add “/r” in the arguments box
     

If users are logged on when the server is about to reboot, it will show a message “you are about to be logged off, windows will shut down in less than a minute”.  It reboots in about 30 seconds from our experience.  If you do this, you’ll want to schedule this when users are not in the server so unsaved data is not lost.