Schedule Your Computer Shutdown and Restart

• Click Start, Run and type control schedtasks

• Double-click Add Scheduled Task. The Scheduled Task Wizard starts.

• Click Next.
   
• Under Click the program you want Windows to run, click Browse.
   
• In the Select Program to Schedule dialog box, locate the %SystemRoot%\System32 folder, locate and click the Shutdown.exe file, and then click Open.

• Under Perform this task, specify a name for the task and how frequently you want this task to run, and then click Next.

• Under Select the time and day you want this task to start, specify a start time and date for the task, and then click Next.

• Type the user name and password to run this task under, and then click Next.

• Click to select the Open advanced properties for this task when I click Finish check box, and then click Finish.

• Click the Task tab. In the Run box, specify any additional parameters that you want to use with Shutdown.exe. Click OK.

Important: In the 10th step, you need to add the parameters for the Shutdown.exe command. To immediately shutdown the system (0 second timeout), the command-line would be:

shutdown.exe -s -t 00

To reboot the system immediately, this command:

shutdown.exe -r -t 00

For additional help, type Shutdown /? at the Command Prompt. Scheduling the Shutdown.exe without any parameters will not help. It will just execute with a exit code 0 (success)