How to add a shutdown script (not by using gpedit.msc or active directory)?

To anyone struggling to get this working, my sympathy. I spent many hours trying to figure out exactly which of the hundreds of changes gpedit makes are actually important. My tests were conducted on Windows Server 2016. These turned out to be relevant:

1. The values under:

   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Group Policy\State\Machine\Scripts\[Startup|Shutdown]\0
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Group Policy\State\Machine\Scripts\[Startup|Shutdown]\0\0
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Group Policy\State\Machine\Scripts\[Startup|Shutdown]\0
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Group Policy\State\Machine\Scripts\[Startup|Shutdown]\0\0
   

2. The directories:

   \Windows\system32\GroupPolicy\Machine\Scripts\Startup
   \Windows\system32\GroupPolicy\Machine\Scripts\Shutdown
   

Windows uses those directories as the working directory for the scripts. Even if you don't keep your startup/shutdown scripts there, those directories need to exist.

Nothing else gpedit does seemed to matter. This includes many registry entries and the .ini files referenced in other answers. It's possible that some of the keys above are superfluous as well but I ran out of testing patience.

I got it working.

I added the script with gpedit.msc on one computer. I exported registry keys from HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\System\Scripts and HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Group Policy\State\Machine. I also zipped the C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\GroupPolicy directory.

On a different computer, I patched the registry with my 2 .reg files I exported earler on my first computer. I also unzipped my zip file to the same location on the second PC.

The script is running on shutdown and I see it in gpedit.msc. Everything seem to be good!

We'll pretend our startup script is located at C:\MyStartupScript.bat

You need a REG_SZ registry entry called Script with its value set to C:\MyStartupScript.bat located at both of the following two locations:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Group Policy\State\Machine\Scripts\Startup\0\0

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\System\Scripts\Startup\0\0

You also need the following entry in C:\WINDOWS\system32\GroupPolicy\Machine\Scripts\Scripts.ini

[Startup]
0CmdLine=C:\MyStartupScript.bat
0Parameters=

For a shutdown script, follow the same instructions but replace every instance of the word Startup with the word Shutdown

edit:

Looks like you may need to create two other registry entries as well if they don't already exist.

You'll need to create them in both of the registry locations mentioned above.

The first entry is a REG_SZ entry called Parameters and its value can be left empty.

The second entry is a REG_QWORD entry called ExecTime and its value is set to 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

In Windows XP, the REG command can't add a REG_QWORD entry to the registry.

To get around this limitation, I, for example, use a batch file that adds these lines

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Group Policy\State\Machine\Scripts\Startup\0\0]
"ExecTime"=hex(b):00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00

to a file called addQword.reg then executes the file using using this command:

regedit /s addQword.reg