I'm writing SOP for stopping Filemaker Server 12 prior to a restart of the hosting Windosw Server. My question is:

When you STOP SERVER, does it gracefully close the databases? Or should one first close the databases? What I've found so far is opinions, but no actual statement that STOP SERVER does or does not close the databases gracefully.

It appears on the surface that when you STOP SERVER and someone is connected, that it gives you a chance to notify users and include a delay before closing the databases and stopping the server. However, I haven't seen anything published about Best Practices.

Bill

You won't find a definitive statement.

And my opinion (here or elsewhere) is based on experience and seeing it fail sometimes.  

The best practice has always been to:

- first disconnect all clients

- then close all the files

- then stop FMS

That gives you plenty of chances to check for errors and problems