[Windows] Generally, while watching movies or reading an eBook, I fall asleep. This must also be a case with many of you, watching movies on your laptop and then lying asleep the next minute, with only ghosts left to watching your boring movie.

Many download junkies also queue files for overnight downloading. And in places where an uninterrupted supply of electricity is not present, these poor download junks have to wake up early to switch off their PCs and avoid data corruption.

As usual, we Techie Buzzers can’t see the plight of such poor souls. Batman is here to help, Gotham shall not worry!

How to Set a Timer for Automatic Shutdown

Setting up a timer for automatic shutdown is no big deal, in fact many people would already know about it, but if you don’t, read on.

There is no software to install and no tweaks to be made. An automatic shutdown is inbuilt into Windows and ready to be explored. Let’s check out how we can set a timer for automatic shutdown.

1. Right click on the desktop. Select New → Shortcut.
2. A New Shortcut dialog box will appear.
3. In the location box, this is how you will enter the details: shutdown.exe is for calling the shutdown executable. s is the command for shutdown. f is for performing a forced shutdown. If an application stops responding when shutting down, this command will force shut it. Using this command is not compulsory, but recommended. And next, the t command is for specifying the time the shutdown will take place. After you put the t command give a space and then enter the time in seconds. So in the above example, the computer will be shut down in 6 hours. Let’s put the whole command in one line:shutdown.exe -s -f -t seconds
4. Click next and the shortcut will be created on the desktop. Give it a name and click it whenever you wish to initiate an automatic shutdown. If you want to change the time, right click on the shortcut, select properties and change the time from the dialog that opens.

Tip: This command can also be initiated from the Run box or CMD.

Tip 2: If you want to display a message that displays when the countdown is in progress, you can append a c command with a message attached. Like this:
-c Computer is shutting down

Tip 3: If you want to restart the computer instead of shutting it down, replace the s with r. Similarly, if you’d like to logoff, replace s with l.

How to abort Shutdown

If you just woke up from sleep and feel like working on your laptop a bit more, there is no easy way you can abort the shutdown. The cross on the top will not work and you won’t be able to kill the process from task manager. But still there’s a way to stop the timer and stopping the bomb before it blasts.

1. Click the WinKey + R
2. The run dialog box will appear. Type shutdown.exe a
3. A stands for abort. The shutdown timer will vanish.

So this was it, let us know how you make use of this feature in the comments!