In my article 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 shutdown your Windows XP computer. In this article I’ll show you how to do the same thing in Windows Vista.
For this How To, I’m using Windows Vista Home Edition. So we’ll dig in right away. Here’s the first screen shot after I clicked on the Start button. Like Windows XP you’ll find the Task Scheduler under the Start Button -> Control Panel -> System and Maintenance -> Administrative Tools -> Schedule tasks.
Here’s the new Vista Task Scheduler. It is more complicated looking for average users than the Task Scheduler in Windows XP. This could possibly keep certain users from every using the Task Scheduler in Vista.
Click image for larger view (800 x 600)
The Task Scheduler is quite a bit different in Vista and there’s a lot to it, but don’t let that hold you back. It might look intimidating but it’s not too bad. Just move forward. We are going to look at one task here 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.
After clicking Next you’ll see the Task Trigger screen. We want to shut down our Vista PC in the middle of the night, every night so we’ll pick Daily.
The next screen you’ll see is the Start Date and Time screen.
The following screen is the Action screen. Let’s Start a program.
The next screen you’ll see is the Start a Program screen.
And finally the Summary screen.
Let’s take a look at our task in the Active Tasks list.
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 Vista down. 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.
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 Vista. It lists the choices of how you want to run the shutdown.exe command.
Click image for larger view
There you have it. Now you can automagically shutdown your Vista computer.
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Cool tips man! I have a habit of putting the music on in my pc until I get to sleep, this would definitely help me shutdown my computer without me getting up from bed. Thanks for sharing
How can you turn on your computer automatically?
@Altitude: Look in your bios at startup. There might be an option for that.
Hey i have an old xp computer ant want to make it a client of my newer vista home premium computer.thanks..
i love that Tip .. thnk u man
thanks, nice instruction. worked well 4 me.
Good but tell me one thing. If I put the task of auto shutting down in the list for a particular time , and if accidentally at that time I happen to be working on my pc then will it prompt me to postponed the task or it will just proceed to shutdown? Thanks
i use to download different movies at night it will help me to shut down my computer after the download
Supercool tips, thanx!
Greetz Joris
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Thank you for information. I will check this out as soon as there will be a chance.
Very nice tutorial, rather than installing a software which shutdowns PC, I think its better to use this trick. thanks again!
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oh wow, that’s pretty cool, i didn’t know this, im going to try this on my vista because sometimes, im not home and i leave my computer on and i know that’s not good to leave your computer on, all day long
And this is something you can use to “wake” up an computer!
http://www.dslreports.com/wakeup
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