Overview of Logon, Logoff, Startup, and Shutdown Scripts in Windows 2000

This article describes the scripts that are available in Windows 2000. It provides an overview of the logon scripts that you can assign to individual users in Computer Management and the user logon, user logoff, computer startup, and computer shutdown scripts that you can configure by using Group Policy.

To remain compatible with earlier versions, Windows 2000 keeps the logon script that is used in Microsoft Windows NT 4.0, in which logon scripts are assigned to individual user accounts. You assign a logon script to an individual user account when you type the path to the logon script file in the Login script box of the Profile tab in the UserName Properties dialog box in Computer Management. When a user logs on and a path to the logon script for the user account appears, the server locates and runs the script. Note that the entry in the Logon script box specifies only the file name (and optionally the relative path) of the logon script. The actual logon script is located on the server.

Windows also provides a set of policy-driven user logon, user logoff, computer startup, and computer shutdown scripts that you can manage by using the Group Policy snap-in. These scripts apply to all the users and computers for which a particular Group Policy object applies. The Group Policy snap-in includes the following two extensions for script deployment:

• Scripts (Startup/Shutdown): Use this extension to specify the scripts that run when you start and shut down the computer. To configure the computer startup and shutdown scripts, start the Group Policy snap-in, expand Computer Configuration, expand Windows Settings, click Scripts (Startup/Shutdown), and then in the right pane, double-click the script that you want to configure. These scripts run on the Local System account.
• Scripts (Logon/Logoff): Use this extension to specify the scripts that run when a user logs on or logs off the computer. To configure the user logon and logoff scripts, start the Group Policy snap-in, expand User Configuration, expand Windows Settings, click Scripts (Logon/Logoff), and then in the right pane double-click the script that you want to configure. These scripts run on the User account and not on the Administrator account.

Windows 2000 includes Windows Script Host (WSH), and therefore these scripts use WSH. This means that you can run the script when you click it on the Windows desktop or when you type the name of the script at the command prompt, and then press ENTER. WSH is a language-independent scripting host that includes support for Microsoft Visual Basic Scripting Edition (VBScript) and JScript scripting engines.

For additional information about how to assign user logon, user logoff, computer startup, and computer shutdown scripts by using Group Policy, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: For additional information about Group Policy in Windows 2000, visit the following Microsoft Web site and view the Group Policy section: For more information about Windows Script Host, visit the following Microsoft Web site: