Hi guys I've opened my big mouth and landed myself in it (again)! Being a bit of a cheerleader for Perl I responded positively when asked if I thought Perl could be used to solve a common problem that we have! Having looked through cpan for modules that may perform this task I may have to eat my words unless some very helpful monk can point me in the right direction. We have 800 PC's (running Windows XP) that require to be updated with application software every time a new release comes our way. As these PC's are spread out all over the country we need a script that is to be run several nights in a row to establish whether or not we can switch these PC's on and off remotely. Over a period of a week or so any PC that can't be switched on and off remotely will get a personal visit from a man with a big spanner to try and resolve this problem. Once all 800 PC's are accessable we can update them all over night and voila happy customers all! I've found modules that ping remote PC's and Net::Wake which may be what I need to awaken a PC but nothing to put it back to sleep. Can anyone give me a pointer/hint on how to accomplish this task?