PowerShell - Script Will Not Run.

I'm trying to make a batch file to remotely shutdown a large group of servers. I have the necessary account privlages needed to run the script. But when I run a test version on my sandbox machines, the script returns an error saying it cannot find the machine. but if I ping the machine using the same address, it works fine. I figure this is something in the firewall, but I have RPC and file and print sharing opened up to the subnet, so I am not sure why it's not working.

Any Ideas?

I am running this on windows Server 2003. but the final version will need to shut down a few server 08 machines as well.

Can you post the code you're using? You've mentioned batch but chosen PowerShell for your thread subject.

I am just doing a basic shutdown command as part of the rest of the script
I'm running as a domain administrator when I run this.

shutdown -s -m\\<address> -d1:1

and it says the machine is not found. but if I ping <address> it finds it.

What ports / services do I need open / running for this to work.

Are you using a host name or an IP address?

And there's a space between the m and the \\, btw.

It does not work with a hostname or an IP.

try with quotes:

There was a problem with the firewall blocking the command. I found a workaround and it works. thanks for the help.

Now I have a new problem.

how can I send a shutdown command, and then confirm that the machine is down before I continue with my script?

try pinging it. when it stop responding, you know it's down.

that's what I thought, but how do I tell my script to continue when it stops responding? if I do the ping -t command I assumed it would stop when it started to time out, but it doesn't stop, it just continues.

it's more complicated than this.
you'll have to ping once. analyze the results. if the server didn't respond,
continue. otherwise sleep for half second or second and ping again.

honestly the is the first script I've ever written in windows, (I've done bash before). so I have no idea how to analyze output like that.

do you know of a tutorial that would bring me up to speed quickly to do what I need to do?