Schedule a PC Shutdown

How can I have Windows shutdown automatically?

This question was answered on September 1, 2006. Much of the information contained herein may have changed since posting.

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Do you keep your Windows XP computer on at night running background tasks but need to shut it down at a particular time? This does not require any specialized software, as Windows XP comes built-in with a scheduler tool and shutdown application All it takes is a few minutes and a little know-how.

Note that you must be logged on as an administrator account Only administrators can start the shutdown process.

1 Click Start.

2 Select Control Panel.

3 Enter Scheduled Tasks.

4 Select Add Scheduled Task.

5 The Scheduled Task Wizard will appear Click Next.

6 Click the "Browse" button

7 When the Select Program to Schedule dialog box appears, enter "%SYSTEMROOT%\System32\shutdown.exe" (without the quotes) and press Open.

8 Name the task Shutdown or whatever you'd like.

9 Choose when to perform the task:

* Daily

* Weekly

* Monthly

* One time only

* When my computer starts

* When I Log on

10 The next screen may ask for more information about when to schedule the task, such as the time, start date for the task, what days to schedule the task, etc.

11 When prompted, enter the username and password (if applicable) of the administrator of the machine Then click Next.

12 Check Open advanced properties for this task when I click Finish then press Finish.

13 Next to Run, add a space, a hyphen, and an s, so the command looks like the following (NOTE that your Windows directory may vary!) Then click OK to re-save the task.

C:\WINDOWS\System32\shutdown.exe -s

14 NOTE: If you get the error message "0x8007005: Access is Denied", visit the following Microsoft Knowledge Base Article - http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx? scid=kb;en-us;884573.

If this STILL doesn't solve your problem, especially if you are:

* Using XP Home instead of XP Pro

* Running with an administrator account with no password

Access the scheduled task properties page (Right-click on the task from the Scheduled Tasks Control Panel) Click the Task tab and check Run only if logged on and press OK Now, you must be logged on your system for the task to run, but if you are the only user of the current machine, this should always be the case.

About the author

Posted by Chad of Data Doctors on September 1, 2006

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