Well, here we go again. In addition to my How To Automatically Shut Down Your Windows XP Computer I showed how to set it up so you can use the ShutDown.exe command to schedule and automatically shut your Windows XP computer off. In my How To Automatically Shut Down Your Windows Vista Computer we stepped through the same idea. And now, here’s Windows 7. Guess what? Not too different. So let’s get going.
For this How To, I’m using Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC). Hopefully not too many changes between now and the final version of Windiows 7 changes in regards to running a scheduled task. Below is the first screen shot after I clicked on the Start button and Control Panel. You’ll find the Scheduled Tasks under System and Security.
Click on System and Security and you should see the Administrative Tool selections at the bottom of the control panel window. Click on Schedule Tasks and you’ll be presented with the screen below.
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The Task Scheduler is pretty much the same in Windows 7 as Windows Vista. The Task Scheduler can look intimidating but it’s not too bad. Just move forward. We are going to look at one task and not all the extra stuff in Task Scheduler.
In the Actions column on the right, click Create Basic Task…
You’ll see the following window and I’ve already filled in the Name and Description of our task.
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After clicking Next you’ll see the Task Trigger screen. We want to shut down our Windows 7 computer in the middle of the night, every night so we’ll pick Daily.
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The next screen you’ll see is the Start Date and Time screen.
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The following screen is the Action screen. Let’s Start a program.
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The next screen you’ll see is the Start a Program screen.
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And finally the Summary screen.
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Let’s take a look at our task in the Active Tasks list.
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Double-click the Task Name if you need to work with the settings.
Here’s the screen when the task fires off and starts to automatically shut down Windows 7. A window pops up telling us that Windows will shut down in less than a minute. You can click on the Close button but that will just close that window and Windows itself will continue to shut down.
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There’s quite a bit of detail with the shutdown.exe command and here is the output when you run the shutdown.exe /? command at the command prompt in Windows 7. It lists the choices of how you want to run the shutdown.exe command.
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Photo Credit: Marcin Wichary
{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
I have to say I like Windows 7 so far.
Do you really shut off your PC?
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I try to shut my main pc off once a week, all night long. Usually Saturday night or every other week. I run virus and spyware scans and clean things up – defrag, delete downloaded files I don’t think I’m going to use, etc.
I auto shut down PCs that I support for other folks in my life – my wife, my mother-in-law, etc. I run virus and spyware scans on those PCs every night they are on and then auto shut them down until those people turn them on. Which could be days.
Windows 7 is looking and acting a lot better than Vista.
I would rather recommend to use switch off soft. Or something like that instead of doing all these staff with windows 7.
@Hotelier: There’s plenty of way to do auto shutdowns and many anti-virus programs have that option after a scan is done as well as corporate software that “pushes” out instructions to the desktops to shut down at a certain time.
Thanks for stoppin’ by.
Nice tutorial. Would like to try it on my own pc. Where do you get the information? Care to share some more info about windows 7?
Thanks for the tutorial on how to automatically shut down my Windows 7. You said you’re uusing the Release Candidate for the tutorials. But what if there would be changes when the final version comes? Would it still be useful?
@EOPS: Yes this still works as of the RTM (Release to Manufacturing) version.
Don’t you think that this is easier just to use special software like Switch Off or just built-in features of AIMP or another player?
@Chuck: You bet. Anything that makes it easier for someone. The article walks through how to do it with just Windows. Thanks for stoppin’ by.
Thanks!! This is really helpful
This is just what I was looking for, could not find it in any of the Windows 7 help files. Of course I never thought to search for something as simple as shutdown.exe.
Senior citizen and still learning.
@Jeff Shickele: Good to hear.
Good I am Try this very soon
Thanks
Wow, that’s a lot of information. I didn’t know there was a built in tool in Windows to automatically shut my computer down. Thanks.
Interesting stuff. I always wondered how people scheduled their computers to shutdown. Is there a way to automatically turn on computers? Now that seems kind of tough.
thank you for this.
since overclocking i have been unable to use the soft off options due to bsod or blank on resume(one common drawback of overclocking).
modified your plan to trigger after being idle for 30 minutes rather then on set schedule though.
Good piece of information. I have installed Windows 7 in my laptop and enjoying its services. I would like to know more about it only if you wish to share it.