Automate shutdown of your PC after set amount of time

G'Meister

Hi

Do you sometimes leave your computer on overnight because you're downloading or your online backup is going to take a couple of hours?

timeout /t 7200 /nobreak && shutdown /s /f

This will make your computer shut down after 2 hours. If you want to make it longer or shorter, change the 7200 number, this is the amount of time in seconds before the shutdown command is executed.
You can either open "cmd" and type it in, or you can create a batch file so you can just click on that whenever you want to do this. http://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Batch-File

It'll take a few minutes to create a batch file if you've never done it before, but it'll save you remembering this command!

Hope that helps turn off some power stations!

Edit:
By the way, I realize you could simply write shutdown /s /f /t 7200 but that only works on XP, whereas this works on Vista or XP .

Traveller1981

Good bit of code, but for those who don't want or know how to do this kind of thing, you can just set the computer to go to standby after a set amount of time (in Power Settings), or bit torrent clients (like uTorrent) have a 'shutdown when downloads complete' feature. This way you pc wont shutdown in 2 hours when the downloads may increase to 3 hours.

Banacek

I like to use this freeware program shutdown after 2.2 you can read and download here.
http://www.vcsoftwares.com/sa.html

Hope that helps.

Conor_3

Seconded. I personally prefer programs that have an option to automatically shut down the PC when finished. The only problem with your method, Gnomemeister, is that it assumes the job will be finished by then.

Iconic

Stupid question but why isn't it easier to use Control Panel/Power Options and put the time in there?

Coveredinbees!!!!

I use slawdog smart shutdown http://www.slawdog.com/products/smartsd/index.aspx

It's a freeware and works really well. You can set the time you want shutdown to occur or set a length of time until shutdown.