The program will automatically determine your system type and install itself correctly. After you download the zip file, unzip the contents to a temporary directory on your machine (or a shared network directory), then double-click setup.exe and click the Install button. Note: Some of our products are distributed as self-extracting zip files. You may either just double-click the distribution file, or rename it to .zip and unzip it.

If GWBoot is already installed, the Install button will not be present. Instead, setup will present an Upgrade button. If older versions of any of the distribution files already exist on your machine, the program will upgrade them automatically when you select Upgrade. In some cases, it may be necessary for you to reboot your machine to complete installation or an upgrade. If so, you will be prompted to restart.

GWBoot installs to the system directory. On Windows 95/98/ME, this is usually c:\windows\system. On Windows NT4/2K/XP/2003/Vista/2008, it is usually c:\windows\system32 or c:\winnt\system32.

Removal
Run setup.exe again, and click the Remove button on the setup dialog. You may also run gwboot.exe /remove from the system directory. The Remove button will only be enabled if setup determines that the service is already installed.

Upgrading
To upgrade to a new version, download and unzip the new version to a temporary directory. Double-click the new setup.exe and click the Upgrade button. The Upgrade button will only be visible if setup determines that an older version of the service is already installed. Otherwise, only the Install and Remove buttons will be shown.

Note: This program may be distributed as a self-extracting zip. If so, it will be named .exe instead of .zip. You may rename it to .zip if you want to extract the files manually. Otherwise, run the file you downloaded, and it will extract the files to a temporary directory and run setup.exe for you.

Command-line Options
Although not generally needed, you may specify the following command-line options when running setup.exe or gwboot.exe. You may use a dash or a forward slash before the option. Slashes are shown below for clarity. Options may also be specified by just the first letter.

• gwboot.exe /version or setup.exe /version -- displays the program's version and copyright information.
• setup.exe /install -- forces installation.
• gwboot.exe /remove or setup.exe /remove-- forces removal.
• gwboot.exe /foreground -- (Windows NT4/2K/XP/2003/Vista/2008 only) runs the program in the foreground.
• setup.exe /upgrade -- (Windows NT4/2K/XP/2003/Vista/2008 only) upgrade to newer version without removing and reinstalling.

To assist with automated installations, the program also supports the /quiet command-line switch. You may use the /quiet switch in conjunction with /remove, /install, or /upgrade. When the /quiet switch is specified, the program only displays dialog boxes if errors are encountered; otherwise, the program performs the requested function and exits immediately. This feature makes it easy to handle installations or upgrades network-wide with a simple batch file.

Administrative Options and Remote Installation

• Remote Install or Removal
  The setup program, setup.exe allows you to specify parameters on the command line for remote installation or removal:

      setup [ -install | -remove | -upgrade | -quiet ] [\\targetmachine]
          

  Examples
  

  • setup -upgrade \\fred would install the service (upgrading if necessary) onto the machine named \\fred
  • setup -remove \\barney would remove the service from the machine \\barney
  • setup -install -quiet would install the service onto the local machine without any prompts
  • setup -remove -quiet would remove the service from the local machine without any prompts

  Note: For remote installation or removal to work (i.e., specifing a target machine name as in the above two examples using \\fred and \\barney), both the machine you are working on and the target machine must be Windows NT4/2K/XP/2003/Vista/2008, and you must be logged on under an account that has administrative privileges on the target machine. You cannot remotely install to or remove from Windows 95/98/ME machines.

Control Panel Applet

Use the How Often section to select the reboot schedule that you prefer. You can schedule daily, weekly, or monthly reboots at specific times.

If you wish to reboot the machine you're controlling immediately, simply click the Boot Now button. You will still have the option to cancel the reboot if you wish.

Confirm Manual Reboot screen

The Options section of the Control Panel applet allows you to select specific boot options.

When the scheduled time for a reboot occurs, GWBoot pops up an administrative alert on the system with the option to cancel the reboot. You can control how long GWBoot will wait for the administrator to cancel the reboot by setting the Delay after restart triggered option.

You can also set GWBoot to beep the PC speaker when the reboot is triggered to give an audible alert to a pending reboot.

The Run ChkDsk section allows you to specify whether GWBoot will schedule a CHKDSK /F on the rebooting system. You have the option of checking all disks, just the system disk, or all disks except the system disks (data drives). ChkDsks can only be performed on local drives (not networked volumes).

Controlling other Machines

The Browse for other Machines dialog box

See the Setup and Installation section for instructions on how to install GWBoot remotely on other machines from your desktop.