How do I turn off my PC

[Mike]

I've just bought an gizmo that will turn off various bits of machinery in the workshop when I switch off the PC.

Being a Mac user, I assumed it would be would be easy to set the Win XP PC to switch itself off each evening but I've been unable to find the setting (if there is one).

How can I do this? It doesn't matter if I can't get it switch on automatically, I just want it to turn itself off.

[Kelvyn]

I have seen this done by a friend who wanted to turn his kid's PC off at 9-30pm every night. He used a UPS with software that causes the attached PC to save any files and then shut down when there was a power loss. The UPS was plugged into a good old-fashioned time switch. So power to UPS switched off at 9.30 and the PC shuts itself down.

[Steve Rindsberg]

Would it be enough to put the computer in standby or, more likely, hibernation? You could have it hibernate based on your usage patterns (ie, instead of having it shut down at a certain time, it could shut down after NN minutes of non-use).

It might depend on whether the gizmo senses a total absence of power draw or reacts to the power demand from the PC dropping below a threshhold.

[Robin Springall]

Windows Vista has an automatic turn-on and -off feature similar to that found on Macs, but with XP things are more limited: you might want to try playing around with the system standby timings (and hibernation) in the power options control panel.

[Mike]

I think it requires a complete power down but I've not had time to play with it yet.

I did toy with the idea of getting one that definitely did sense the PC going into sleep mode but I decided I didn't want that as I don't want some of the equipment being switched on and off during the day.

If all else fails I'll just have to remember to switch the PC off at night.

[Barrie Greed]

It should be possible to achieve what you want using the Windows Script Host if you are happy dabbling in the black arts.

Have a look at this Microsoft TechNet article which includes a ready made script which you can alter for your particular needs.

Then you can schedule the script to run daily at a given time using the Scheduled Tasks tool which you will find under Accessories\System Tools\.

It's a bit more complicated than it should be but it should get the job done.

[BobRoosth]

You can simply create a shutown.bat file containing the single command

shutdown -s

Then use the Windows Scheduler to run that file at any time you designate.

For other options with this command, click Start. Select Run, enter cmd and click OK. That puts you in a cmd windows (looks a lot like DOS). Enter shutdown /? for all the options.

[Mike]

Thanks for those suggestions. In the meantime I came across this but haven't had a chance to use it yet as I spent the whole of yesterday trying to get a laser printer to work.

[ktinkel]

Originally Posted by Mike

Thanks for those suggestions. In the meantime I came across this but haven't had a chance to use it yet as I spent the whole of yesterday trying to get a laser printer to work.

Isn’t it wonderful the way computers streamline our lives, make us so much more productive!

[Mike]

Originally Posted by ktinkel

Isn’t it wonderful the way computers streamline our lives, make us so much more productive!

Absolutely. This morning I spent an hour trying to get the broadband and the internal network working. I think it's all just about OK now.

The printer problem was a replacement for an HP2605DN. I decided it was too expensive using that for bulk copies so I bought a used Ricoh 3800C with duplexer. It was ages before I could get it recognised on the network - problem which was finally solved by plugging it into a different socket on the ethernet hub.

It seems to be a bit fussy about paper stock but it does churn out the copies at quite a rate.