Shut Down

Shut Down is for those of you who want Windows to automatically restart or shut down, at a pre-determined time. The time must be at least 10 seconds, but no more than 24 hours, in the future. The time can be specified in one of two different ways, At HH:MM:SS or In HH:MM:SS. The choice of a 12 or 24 hour clock is available too, just for any dinosaurs still out there!

Anyway, you should find that Shut Down looks something like the screenshot below...

As you can see, there is quite a variety of different options and settings that you can choose from when using Shut Down, but it should be straight forward to use, once you have had a quick look at them. The various settings are split in to three sections:

• 'Shut Down - Time' - This section has three boxes that allow you to enter the exact time when you want Windows to restart or shut down. Starting from the left, the first box is for the Hours, then the next box is for the Minutes, and the last box is for the Seconds. In this section, there is also a choice between AM and PM, if you are using a 12 hour clock.

• 'Shut Down - Settings' - This section allows you to choose between restarting or shutting down Windows and whether it should perform that process At the given time, or In the given amount of time from now. If you choose the In option, the AM and PM choices, mentioned above, and the 'Clock - Settings' section, mentioned below, will no longer be available. This is done just to make sure that there is no confusion about when the restarting or shutting down process will begin. The process of restarting or shutting down Windows can be 'Forced', if necessary. This means that should any windows pop-up asking you to save any changes or confirm any actions, they would be ignored and the restarting or shutting down process would continue. Note that this would most likely result in the loss of any unsaved work, so please use it carefully.

• 'Clock - Settings' - This section allows you to choose between using an 12 or 24 hour clock. If you choose the 24 hour clock, the AM and PM choices, mentioned above and shown in the screenshot above, will no longer be available. This is done just to make sure that there is no confusion whatsoever about when the restarting or shutting down process will begin.

What is not visible in the screenshot, is that Shut Down lives in the system tray, which is the part of the screen near your PC's clock, and that just prior to your PC restarting or shutting down, a window will appear, which gives you 10 seconds to abort.

Once you are happy with the various options and settings, all you need to do to start the countdown process is press the 'Start' button. If the time you entered is valid, the 'Start' button will then become a 'Stop' button, just in case you need to stop the countdown process for any reason. If however the time you entered is invalid, an error message will appear advising you which details you need to correct. It is important that Shut Down stays loaded if the restarting or shutting down process is to work, so once you have clicked on the 'Start' button, you can then click the 'OK' button to minimise the program to the system tray. In constrast, if you want to close Shut Down, simply click on the 'Close' button, but remember this will end any countdown process.

After minimising Shut Down, by clicking the 'OK' button, there are two ways that you can restore the program; you can either double click on the icon in the system tray, or right click on the icon in the system tray and select 'Show...' from the pop-up menu. You will also find that there is a 'Close' option on the pop-up menu, which provides an alternative way to close Shut Down, as well as an 'Auto-Load' option, which sets Shut Down to automatically load every time that Windows is (re)started.