Well, here we go again. In addition to my How To Automatically Shut Down Your Windows XP Computer I showed how to set it up so you can use the ShutDown.exe command to schedule and automatically shut your Windows XP computer off. In my How To Automatically Shut Down Your Windows Vista Computer we stepped through the same idea. And now, here’s Windows 7. Guess what? Not too different. So let’s get going.

For this How To, I’m using Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC). Hopefully not too many changes between now and the final version of Windiows 7 changes in regards to running a scheduled task. Below is the first screen shot after I clicked on the Start button and Control Panel. You’ll find the Scheduled Tasks under System and Security.

Click on System and Security and you should see the Administrative Tool selections at the bottom of the control panel window. Click on Schedule Tasks and you’ll be presented with the screen below.


The Task Scheduler is pretty much the same in Windows 7 as Windows Vista. The Task Scheduler can look intimidating but it’s not too bad. Just move forward. We are going to look at one task and not all the extra stuff in Task Scheduler.

In the Actions column on the right, click Create Basic Task…
You’ll see the following window and I’ve already filled in the Name and Description of our task.

In the Actions column on the right, click Create Basic Task…

You’ll see the following window and I’ve already filled in the Name and Description of our task.

Windows 7 Create Basic Task


After clicking Next you’ll see the Task Trigger screen. We want to shut down our Windows 7 computer in the middle of the night, every night so we’ll pick Daily.

Windows 7 Task Trigger


The next screen you’ll see is the Start Date and Time screen.

Windows 7 Daily Task


The following screen is the Action screen. Let’s Start a program.

Windows 7 Task Action


The next screen you’ll see is the Start a Program screen.

Windows 7 Start a Program


And finally the Summary screen.

Windows 7 Task Summary


Let’s take a look at our task in the Active Tasks list.

Windows7 Active Tasks List


Double-click the Task Name if you need to work with the settings.

Here’s the screen when the task fires off and starts to automatically shut down Windows 7. A window pops up telling us that Windows will shut down in less than a minute. You can click on the Close button but that will just close that window and Windows itself will continue to shut down.

Windows 7 Automatic Shutdown


There’s quite a bit of detail with the shutdown.exe command and here is the output when you run the shutdown.exe /? command at the command prompt in Windows 7. It lists the choices of how you want to run the shutdown.exe command.

Windows 7 Task Scheduler Parameters