Automatically shut down Windows PC if not in use

We already dealt with Windows scheduled tasks some time ago, learning to run applications at a specific time (perhaps periodically).

Preliminary information

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Today, however, we will use the scheduled operations to do one very specific thing: shut down Windows PC automatically and only if we are not using it!

This could be a useful operation for those who, like me for example, leave the computer on and leave the house, then forgetting to turn it off when returning late in the evening.

In fact, we have already dealt with the automatic shutdown of the Windows PC with a third-party program but, in this guide, the inactivity state will make the difference: as already mentioned, our Windows PC will try to shut down (and will try again until it fails. ) if and only if it has not been in use for a certain amount of time.

In the guide below, which will teach you to shut down Windows PC automatically, we will do that our computer tries to shut itself down starting at 11pm and only if it remains inactive for half an hour. The countdown will then be restarted when we use the PC, so as to prevent automatic shutdown if we are in front of our station.

By changing the departure time, however, we will be able to adapt this scenario to any period of the day.

Automatically shut down Windows PC

The first thing to do is to open theWindows scheduler: this can be done via the Start menu, by entering the string "Scheduler" in the search field and selecting the only result returned, or through the "Run system" window, by typing the key combination on the keyboard WIN + R and typing the command inside

taskschd.msc

and typing enter. One will appear window similar to this:

Let's click on "Create activity" in the far right panel:

A window similar to this will appear:

Let's move to the General tab and configure everything as follows:

• Let's give a name to our planned operation;
• we associate a description to better remember what it does;
• we put the check mark on "Run regardless of user connection";
• we put the check mark on "Run with the highest privileges";
• in the field "Configure For:" we choose our operating system.

Let's move now to the tab Activation and click on New. A window similar to this will appear:

We configure everything as follows:

• the activity must be started based on a schedule;
• the start date must be the current day and the start time must betime from which our PC must try to shut down (in our case 11 pm, or 23 pm);
• we put the check mark on Daily and insert 1 in the occurrence for repeat the operation every day;
• we put the check mark on Enabled.

Let's OK and, once back to the main window, let's move to the tab Actions and click on New... A second window similar to this will appear:

Now:

• in the Operation field we select Program start;
• in the "Program or script" field we type shutdown (the tool that Windows uses for shutdown and restart operations);
• in the "Add topics" field we type /S (for the shutdown) and, if we want, we also add the parameter /F to forcibly close open applications and unsaved documents (if there are any, without the / F parameter the machine shutdown will be blocked).

Click OK and, once back in the main window, move to the tab Terms.

Let's configure it as follows:

1. we put the check mark on "Start the activity only if the computer is inactive for:" and set 30 minutes;
2. we set "Wait inactivity for:" 1 hours;
3. we put the check mark on Stop if the computer is no longer inactive (otherwise it will go out in the middle of our work);
4. we put the check mark on Reboot on recovery from idle state.

Finally, let's move on to the board Settings and configure it as shown in the image:

Practically:

• we put the check mark on Allow execution of activities on request;
• we put the check mark on In case of error, restart task every and we set 30 minutes in the side curtain;
• we set to 6 times higher attempts to restart.

Once this is done, let's go finally OK and enter our password when prompted: starting from this moment our Windows PC will try to shut down automatically every half hour (plus an hour of first waiting) a starting from 23.

By changing the activation time, however, we can make the computer try to shut down automatically in another time slot; playing even more with the settings and using a current monitoring (with a high number of attempts), moreover, we can make the computer shut down as soon as we are inactive for half an hour.

We leave these cases to your imagination!

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