I need a free progie to shut down PC after a time

[Gabriel Knight]

Hi, Is there a free program to run on win xp sp3 so that it can shut down or
put my pc into stand by mode (sleep) after a set amount of time as I have an
mp3 player that can only be recharged by pc and I dont like to keep my pc on
unused for about 11 houres because I recharge it before I go to sleep and 11
houres later I turn off the pc hence why I need a free progie.

Thanks all
GK

 

[123Jim]

Hi, Is there a free program to run on win xp sp3 so that it can shut down
or put my pc into stand by mode (sleep) after a set amount of time as I
have an mp3 player that can only be recharged by pc and I dont like to
keep my pc on unused for about 11 houres because I recharge it before I go
to sleep and 11 houres later I turn off the pc hence why I need a free
progie.

Just use XP's built in 'monitor Power settings'....
Right click on the desktop, choose properties > screen saver> Power ... >
Choose a power scheme and change the settings which suit your situation. ..
don't forget to 'apply' > 'ok' the changes .

 

[John Dulak]

Hi, Is there a free program to run on win xp sp3 so that it can shut down or
put my pc into stand by mode (sleep) after a set amount of time as I have an
mp3 player that can only be recharged by pc and I dont like to keep my pc on
unused for about 11 houres because I recharge it before I go to sleep and 11
houres later I turn off the pc hence why I need a free progie.

Thanks all
GK

GK:

You could also spend a few bucks for an AC/USB charger like this:

http://www.amazon.com/USB-AC-MP3-Players-White/dp/B000A2BLEC

I've had one for a few years for the same application and it works
fine. There are also versions that will do the same thing from a
vehicle's accessory plug.

HTH & GL

John

--
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------------------o000----(o)(o)----000o----------------
----------------------------()--------------------------
'' Madness takes its toll - Please have exact change. ''

John Dulak - 40.4888ºN,79.899ºW - http://tinyurl.com/2qs6o6

 

[VanguardLH]

Hi, Is there a free program to run on win xp sp3 so that it can shut down or
put my pc into stand by mode (sleep) after a set amount of time as I have an
mp3 player that can only be recharged by pc and I dont like to keep my pc on
unused for about 11 houres because I recharge it before I go to sleep and 11
houres later I turn off the pc hence why I need a free progie.

Besides the suggestion already mentioned to use Power Options to put
your host into standby or hibernate power modes, and going by what you
asked in your Subject header, you could use the shutdown program
included in Windows XP. It even lets you specify the number of seconds
before the host gets shut down. It is a command-line program (no fancy
or unneeded GUI). Open a command shell and run the following to see its
parameters:

shutdown.exe /?

It's found under C:\Windows\System32 but you shouldn't have to add the
path to find the executable.

 

[Gabriel Knight]

Thanks all, I dont like the look of the command line "shutdown.exe" but I
like the look of the system standby in properties > screen saver> Power I
will run a few tests. John Dulak I cant use one of those chargers as my mp3
player can only use a running pc and my pc has a somewhere about a 750watt
power supply so leaving my pc on without using it costs money I dont know
how much but I like to keep the old energy bill as cheap as I can get it!
Gerald Ross I dont understand what you are saying but my pc is a desktop and
I dont know if the battery of my mp3 player will drain if I leave it
attached to a pc in standby mode - dose anyone know if this is true or not?

Thanks

 

[VanguardLH]

Another option: Under System Tools there is a program called
Scheduled Tasks. You can open Scheduled Tasks and it will run a
program once, daily, etc. You could have it run shutdown.exe daily
at 1:00 am or whatever time you want.

The OP already shot down my idea of using shutdown.exe. If he doesn't
want to define a shortcut with the parameters to specify how long to
wait until the shutdown, I doubt he will want to use shutdown.exe with
its parameters as a scheduled event.

Wizmo is a tiny program that will tell your computer to shutdown,
Sleep, hibernate and other commands, but to use it with Scheduled
tasks you will need a batch file. I made one using a simple editing
program and named it "Shutdown.bat". The batch file consists of a
single line: wizmo quiet exit. I have Wizmo in the Windows
directory and the bat file in the same directory. I tested it using
Scheduled Tasks and it works fine.

Presumably you're talking about http://www.grc.com/wizmo/wizmo.htm.

Why can't you specify "<path>\wizmo.exe quiet exit" as the command line
('Run:' field) for the scheduled event?

Another utility that has a similar feature set is Nirsoft's nircmd. It
can mute the speakers (you probably don't want alerts or blares when the
computer is supposed to be locked or sleeping), put into standby mode,
power down the monitor (if it's locked or in low-power mode, you won't
be watching the monitor and it might not show anything, anyway), etc.
Alas, the OP probably won't like wizmo.exe or nircmd.exe anymore than he
liked shutdown.exe.

 

[VanguardLH]

It may be possible, but not that familiar with Scheduled Tasks. It
seemed to want to be pointed to a executable then go to the next
step. The "quiet" in the command mutes the speaker.

I never use the Add New Task wizard in Task Scheduler. It's a nuisance
since I end up having to go back to edit the event, anyway. So I just
right-click in the task pane and select New -> Scheduled Task (or get at
it via the File menu). The wizard is limited. If you want full control
over the definition of a scheduled event then you'll have to go edit it.

If it wasn't due to using the wizard (which lets you point at the file
but only optionally at the end lets you edit the task), I suspect the
program got installed or placed under a path that includes spaces and
you forgot to double-quote the full path to the executable.

C:\Program Files\GRC\wizmo.exe quiet exit

won't work because parsing is on space characters which means the
command you specifed was "C:\Program" (and there is no program.exe under
C: root). You need to use the following:

"C:\Program Files\GRC\wizmo.exe" quiet exit

If you had used the Browse button to find the executable file, its path
would automatically get double-quoted if space characters were used in
the path. Then after selecting the executable file, you would edit the
command line to add the parameters. Sometimes the parameters have to be

Well, free was my guiding factor as he requested.

My guiding factor as well. All of the Nirsoft utilities are free
(versus some free stuff and some paid stuff at GRC).

However, nircmd doesn't permit the multiple directives that wizmo
provides. That because nircmd takes parameters to the directives so
multiple directives are not allowed (no way to guarantee correct
parsing). So with nircmd you might have to use a .bat file to list the
nircmd's for each directive (e.g., 3 calls of nircmd.exe for mute,
monitor off, lock workstation).

While nircmd looks to be more powerful than wizmo, for the average user
and the ability to specify multiple directives in one command line the
wizmo utility is probably easier to use.

 

[VanguardLH]

By the way, I got wizmo and tried a few things. I have a .bat file that
when ran will use nircmd to mute the speakers, lock the workstation, and
power off the monitor (I do not want the rest of the host in a low-power
mode until the power scheme triggers). This works. When executed, I
can later shake the mouse or hit a key and the monitor powers back up
and I can see the login page to get back in.

When I try the same with wizmo:

wizmo.exe quiet mute=1 lock monoff

I'm stuck with a dead monitor. The monitor gets powered off but no
mouse or keyboard input will trigger it to power own. I'm left with an
active instance of Windows but no way to see it. I have to hit Reset to
kill and reload Windows. I noticed the description for the monoff
parameter says that it uses APM. Well, ACPI replaced that a long time
ago (and is the default in most under-10 year old hosts) but well before
the last update to wizmo. The last version of APM was back in 1996 and
when ACPI started appearing. I don't know if it is an APM versus ACPI
issue. I do know wizmo's monoff won't let me power the monitor back up.

The "nircmd.exe monitor off" works okay. The monitor powers off but
later I can shake the mouse or hit a key and it gets powered back on.
Could be a hardware config issue on my host and how wizmo does its
monitor power off function. Nircmd works on my host.

The only functions in wizmo that aren't in nircmd were:

wanlock/wanopen (this is a pet peeve of Gibson regarding wifi behavior)
play (a .wav file)
Graviton directives (Gibson's screen saver)

There are so many functions in nircmd that aren't in wizmo that I won't
bother listing them.