How to schedule a shutdown ?

1. Autoclose - GUI based, freeware, 236KB

autoclose is a small utility to shut down Windows systems automatically. Some of its features are:

* Shut down the system at certain hour (e.g. at 12:00).

* Shut down the computer according CPU usage - Several types of shut down (shut down, restart, ...).

* User friendly interface.

* Works with Windows 9x/Me/NT/2000.
Click to expand...

I've tested this successfully with WinXP as well.

Website: http://www.geocities.com/pbornet/autoclose.htm

Download it here.

2. The Beyondlogic shutdown utility - Console based, freeware, 19KB

The Windows 2000 Professional Resource Kit and Windows XP introduce a shutdown.exe command line utility to shutdown local and/or remote computers. This utility can be used in conjunction with the task schedular or AT service to shutdown computers after hours to help conserve power (money, and the environment) or to reboot your computer after hours to make it more reliable.

However a quick play with these utilities will fine that they are less than adequate. First, they provide limited options to shutdown, reboot or logoff. However shutdown does not actually turn your ACPI compliant computer off but rather displays the “It is now safe to turn off your computer” message. There is no recourse for the user to cancel the operation, or an opportunity to target idle computers without logged on users.

The Beyondlogic shutdown utility on the other hand provides :

* Options to shutdown, power-off, reboot, suspend, hibernate, log-off or lock the workstation.

* Actually shutdowns ACPI Compliant computers including WinNT4 with the hal.dll.softex Hardware Abstraction Layer.

* Ability to display optional message of a maximum 300 characters.

* The shutdown dialog will appear on the active window, should it be the login window, login screen saver, logged in user's desktop, or on a locked workstation.

* Option to allow the user to cancel the operation. (This can be greyed out)

* Option to prevent shutdown action occurring on logged-on computers giving your users the flexibly to run lengthy processes overnight without being disturbed.
Click to expand...

The Beyondlogic shutdown utility is an 18KB download and is freeware. Check the usage from the website.

You can download it here.

3. No utility - Console based, integrated into Windows

Windows 2000 and XP contains a GUI task scheduler. However this scheduler doesn’t provide the option to allow processes the right to interact with the desktop. Therefore you need to use the AT service bundled with NT4/2000 and XP instead.



C:\ at 18:00 /interactive /every:M,T,W,Th,F,S,Su c:\windows\system32\shutdown.exe -i -l 600

The above example shows how you can schedule a shutdown to occur at 6:00pm each night.
Click to expand...

Lots more utils @ http://www.nonags.com/nonags/shutd.html
 
I use switch off. its small and pretty good. comes in handy when i fall asleep listening to music.
And I think it has more options than autoclose.
 
^^

"switch off" is web enabled and can hang up internet connxns.

"autoclose" can perform shutdown/logoff/etc. based on CPU usage %.

except for these differences, they'r quite similar in functionality.
 
Back
Top