STARTUP: Keep SYSTARTUP_VMS.COM to a minimum. It should contains no more than what is found to require interactive mode to run (by trial and error. There is no documentation on this requirement...). ANY error should cause the procedure to stop. The rest - which is the majority of activities - is submitted and done in batch. It should run to it's end, even in case of error. The order of activities in STARTUP relate to the dependencies between them. If one doesn't finish correctly, dependent activities will be bypassed. Also, it is taken into account how the system was stopped: using a (completed) shutdown, by some error during shutdown, or without SHUTDOWN (crash, power failure). This controls what's done and what's not. At end, a procedure is started - with some delay, to give processes a chance to settle themselves - that will check the system to see whether all that's required is available. The system will be up-and-running and usable (from the console) in an early stage, and, more important: you have a logfile of the rest. SHUTDOWN: Keep SYSHUTDWN.COM as minimal as possible. This implies that before running SHUTDOWN.COM the system should be as emtty (and clean) as possible: No users, No running queues, No running processes (and hence: NO open databases). If stopping a proces is required, it is first attempted to stop processes in a fashionable manner. If not possible within a reasonable time, check the state and if possible, it's stopped another way - as cleas as possible. Otherwise shutdown may be the only way to get rid of it (RWAST state, for instance...) so forget about it for now. Just before invoking the SHUTDOWN procedure, data is stored that shows the CURRENT status of the system. Then, SHUTDOWN.COM is invoked. Since the system is now clear, this should never be a problem. In SYSHUTDOWN.COM, devices are dismounted after is has been assured it's mounted - running down all devices. In the end, all still mounted devices are collected. Some other shutdowns are done here, but these are quite trivial (Like TCPIP as a whole - since services would already been stopped) SYSHUTDWN.COM will continue in case of an error. The data collected during shutdown, is used during startup to control activity. After startup, it's either deleted (if no problems did exist) or stored elsewhere (for research)