Member Avatar for mteeters

We are running MS Server 2003. We have written a program in VB to record the user name and time in and out of the lab to track computer usage. These are users in our domain. I am having trouble running the files from the group policy. If I read correctly you must use either a .bat file or a windows scripting file to use the group policy settings to run a program on logon and logoff. I tried a bat file calling the logon.exe file. Doesn't work. I tried calling the logon.exe directly. Doesn't work.

I can run the logon file locally by calling a .bat file. But I cannot figure out how to call the logoff file. What can I use to trigger the logoff file to execute? Both files are writing to a database on the network.

I am not familiar with windows scripting files. Should I try to covert to script to call the files?

Any information could be helpful. Am under a time constraint of course!

Thanks,
M. Teeters

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Member Avatar for Ooble

Doesn't Windows already log this information?

Member Avatar for mteeters

I'm not sure. If it does, I don't know how to access it. You can look at the event logs and see when a successful or unsuccessful log on happens, but when you try to track a specific user through the event logs, it gets to be a very time consuming and difficult job.

I put the .exe in a bat file and it works, for the logon (when I install the program on the local workstations), but I can't seem to trigger the logoff program. I'm not opposed to reading. I know some solutions aren't easy and have many ways to solve.

Thank you for your reply.

M.Teeters

Member Avatar for Ooble

I gotcha. Unfortunately, I can't help ya - I don't know much about Windows servers.

Member Avatar for mteeters

Thank you for replying anyway. Maybe someone will be able to offer some suggestions.

M.Teeters

Member Avatar for mteeters

I finally got the logon and logoff files to work. I had to do it through group policy. I found out you can run more than one file, so I ran a .bat file that maps the network drives first. I had to have connection before it would write to the database on one of the app servers. I also found out that any executable file will work. It doesn't have to be a script file. So, now we can see the user, the time in, time out, and total time spent logged in. Since we are a school, this helps to justify additional personnel and equipment.

Thanks to Ooble for your response, and by the way, I like your program!
M.Teeters

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