Is there a timer to automatically shut down windows?

thor

It would be very useful for me if I could find something that does the opposite - turn on a PC from a complete shutdown. Obviously Windows cannot do this as it is won't be loaded up but is there a possiblity that the bios might be able to manage it?

fwor

Yes, most modern BIOS have this feature - it's typically under power management, often called "resume by alarm".

If you have a server that's running 24 hours a day, you can also schedule a task on that to use "Wake On LAN" to remotely power up a PC that is off - provided it has WOL enabled in its BIOS.