Windows unattended reliable boot

Question

I have a system that will be unattended and unreachable, which has to run a windows system (7+). The operation is that it will start-up, perform an operation, and then switch-off again (as in no power) for a number of cycles (around 100). It will have to boot everytime, and it has to do so without waiting for a user interaction.

What version of Windows is the right one for this? I've looked into Windows 10 IoT Enterprise, but a) it seems just a windows 10 pro with a different license and b) it seems to be not so easy to buy such a license. So my current preferred version is a normal Windows 10 Pro.

I've found that you can disable automatic repair, which I am not sure is a good thing. I would just like to make the repair non-interactive.

How I would have done this on linux would have been with a read-only boot partition, so that e.g. switching off the power without shutting down doesn't create any damage in the filesystem.

To summarise my question:

• What is the edition of Windows most suited for this?
• What configuration options should I consider to make the boot process as reliable as possible in the sense that it requires no user-interaction?

Answer 1

You are being very vague here... what is the "operation" you wish it to do? How often?

Also, it is impossible to have "no-power" unless you have someone physically flip a switch on premise. The closest it can get is the "off" state where the motherboard takes up very little power to watch for power on command (such is by pressing the power switch, or via timed setting). Or rather, it is impossible for windows to do so. You can buy a piece of hardware that would cut and give power based on a certain timer. But it is not guaranteed to provide power long enough for the OS to do what you want it to before the timer runes out and it cuts power since it cannot communicate with the OS.

For the purpose of regular automatic bootup, I would look towards the motherboard rather than the OS. Find a motherboard that supports it and configure it to automatically boot when required.

You haven't said what the action you want it to take on bootup is, so I can't be certain, but but whatever custom program you are running there can just be set to run by placing a shortcut in the "startup" folder.

To automatically turn it off, have whatever custom program you are running send the command "shutdown" via command prompt when its done doing whatever it is you want it to do. (a simple batch file can do so as well.).

You are wrong about automatic repair requiring human interaction, its called automatic for a reason. Do not disable it.

To answer your question about which edition of windows is most suitable... the answer is all of them. Your request has nothing to do with windows functionality and can be done by all the versions of windows.

Also, why do you even need it to shut down power entirely? there is no reason to do so rather than just idling.