Shut down PC at certain time

[Electric]

I am running a Windows 7 64bit PC and after searching for how to get it to shut down automatically at a certain time every day, I came across this on the Microsoft forums:

If using Windows 7, follow these steps to schedule your PC(Personal Computer) to shut down at a certain time at night:

1. Go to Start > Control Panel > System and Security > Administrative Tools and click on the Task Scheduler.

2. From the Action menu in Task Scheduler, click "Create Basic Task..."

3. In the "Create Basic Task Wizard" windows that pops up, Type in a title and a description. Something basic like "PC Shutdown."

4. Click "Next."

5. On the "Task Trigger" screen, choose the frequency with which you want the Shutdown PC to run. For nightly shutdown, click on "daily" and click the Next" button.

6.On the "Daily" screen, enter the date and time you want your PC to shutdown. Click "Next."

7. On the "Action" screen, choose "Start a program" and click "Next."

8. On the "Start a Program" screen, type C:\Windows\System32\shutdown.exe in the "Program/script" text field.

9. In the Add arguments text field type /s.

10. Click "Next."

11. Confirm your settings on the Summary screen and click "Finish."

Now your Windows 7 computer will automatically shutdown at the same time every day/night.

This is not working. From what I can see the file that it points to might be wrong. As when I run the shutdown.exe in the System32 folder manually it does not shut down the PC.

Is there a different file I could point it to that will make this work?

[HUMMER]

you can start to see if there is a shutdown.exe in the system32 folder.

[mareke]

I use a program called Switch Off which does it. I'm not sure it will work with Windows 7 64 bit.

http://www.tucows.com/preview/246415

[Foxster]

Did you put /s in the argument field in step 9? If you run shutdown without any arguments then it won't shut the PC down so maybe this is your problem?

[Electric]

Originally Posted by HUMMER

you can start to see if there is a shutdown.exe in the system32 folder.

Originally Posted by Electric

From what I can see the file that it points to might be wrong. As when I run the shutdown.exe in the System32 folder manually it does not shut down the PC.

The file is in the folder. If I go to the file in explorer and run it nothing happens.

Originally Posted by Foxster

Did you put /s in the argument field in step 9? If you run shutdown without any arguments then it won't shut the PC down so maybe this is your problem?

When I set it up looks like I skimmed over Step 9 without even taking notice of it. Have put the argument in now and will see if that fixes the problems. Thanks for the tip.

[yanman]

I just used the AT command

Type at /? In a cmd line session and it's pretty easy. Can't remember if I used a bat file to set it after each start up

[Electric]

Not sure what you mean yanman.


But I have got it working. Seems I just forgot to put in the /s argument. Works great now

[yanman]

Originally Posted by Electric

Not sure what you mean yanman.


But I have got it working. Seems I just forgot to put in the /s argument. Works great now

So something like this:

C:\Users\xxx>at 22:00 /every:M,T,W,Th,F,S,Su shutdown -s -t 0
Added a new job with job ID = 1

C:\Users\xxx>at
Status ID   Day                     Time          Command Line
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
        1   Each M T W Th F S Su    10:00 PM      shutdown -s -t 0

Except last time I did it I didn't use the every day part. I created a batch file with just:

at 22:00 shutdown -s -t 0

then put the batch file in the startup folder.

Then I modified the BIOS settings to wake the machine up at a certain time

[JolyV]

Auto POwer On

[Frog]

I use task scheduler on win7 to shut down
In general tab make sure highest privileges is checked
use C:\Windows\System32\shutdown.exe

program/script /s /f
works for me