If you’ve ever wanted to schedule the shut down of your Windows PC hours in advance, I recommend you download and use AMP WinOFF. I have used it for a few years now, and it has never failed me.

AMP WinOFF is a free utility (for private use) that is designed to tell your computer when and how to shut down. You can schedule it to turn off at a certain time (for example at 10pm or at midnight), or in 15 minutes, an hour or 4 hours. There are several modes you can use: shut down, restart, close session, power off, administrative shut down/restart, suspend, hibernate and lock computer. Other options include shut down when the processor becomes idle, capturing the desktop, executing a program and/or hang up the modem before the shut down.

Security options include anti-close protection and password protected access to the configuration. Bonus feature is the command line support for batch processing.

This small program is handy when you are downloading or installing something and you don’t have the time to wait until the operation completes. In this case, you can turn on AMP WinOFF and tell the PC to shut down later. This may also help reduce your electricity costs as the PC won’t stay on all the time.

You can download AMP WinOFF here.