How to schedule Windows 10 and Windows 11 so that your PC turns off by itself

Windows 10 and Windows 11 have an automatic PC shutdown function that also allows us to select the time we want our computer to turn off. This function does not require third-party applicationsand it is very easy to use, we just have to follow these steps:

1. We press the Windows key and write “Command Prompt”.
2. We enter the first result by right-clicking and choosing the “Run as Administrator” option.
3. Once inside we write “shutdown /s /f /t seconds” without quotes.

This will start a countdown to system shutdown from the moment we press enter on the keyboard. We must change the word “seconds” to the number of seconds we want to pass until the computer turns off. To make your life a little easier, I remind you that 3,600 seconds are one hour, so 7,200 seconds would be two hours.

There are other ways to use this function, such as using the task scheduler, creating a shortcut and from PowerShell, but the “Command Prompt” It is my favorite, and it is also the simplest.

What if I regret it and don’t want to turn off Windows 10 or Windows 11?

If you have already used the command but do not want the PC to shut down, do not worry, you can cancel it by entering the “Command Prompt” again and entering the command «shutdown /a» without quotes. The letter “a” refers to aborting the shutdown process.

The shutdown process will be carried out completely safely, but it is important that you remember that you have used this function and how much time you have for it to don’t catch you doing something important with the PC just at the moment when it begins to turn off.

When is it useful to use Windows automatic shutdown

It is a very useful function to turn off the computer when we leave it doing something specific that we know will take a specific time, and that we will not be able to turn it off manually once it’s over. For example, imagine that you stop downloading a Steam game and you leave home, it is likely that the game will finish downloading and that it will take several hours to arrive and turn off the PC.

In that case, it would be very useful for you to use the automatic shutdown function. If the game is going to take an hour to download, you can schedule the shutdown within an hour and a half, to give you a little margin for possible changes in your download speed, and You won’t have to worry about leaving the PC on for several hours until you come home.

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