14 DAY TRIAL // Shutdown applications offer smart solutions for helping you cut down power consumption by activating the standby or hibernation mode, or power off your computer at a user-defined time.
Auto Power-on Shut-down integrates all of the aforementioned features and provides support for extra utilities in order to help you wake your computer up from hibernation or sleep mode, schedule powerful tasks in order to delete temporary files, run or close custom programs, open websites, show messages, create keyboard/mouse macros, as well as wake up every morning listening to your favorite song.
You can use the program for 30 days as a trial version and then buy a license for $24.95 / €18.23.
User interface
Auto Power-on Shut-down lets you work with a multi-tabbed layout in order to help you keep an eye on the scheduled tasks and configure advanced parameters. Although it gives you the freedom to access an online help manual, which provides extra details about the program’s features, the main window and configuration panel are quite intuitive so checking out the manual is not a prior step for working with this tool.
As soon as you have finished with creating scheduled tasks, you can found the utility sitting quietly in the system tray waiting for your command.
Several features can be accessed if you perform a right-click mouse operation on its icon from the system tray, namely access the configuration panel with advanced parameters, open up Windows Power Options, create a new task, show the list with all tasks, automatically shut down the computer, synchronize date and time with remote servers, run the utility at Windows startup, as well as quickly trigger a shutdown session, namely shutdown, restart, logoff, standby, hibernate, lock, or close the monitor.
Managing scheduled tasks
You are entitled to create multiple tasks, edit the selected one, delete all passed or disabled tasks, enable or disable them, as well as clear the workspace with just one click.
There’s support for plenty of configuration settings that you can make use of for creating personalized tasks. You may provide details about the title, run the current task daily, once, monthly, annually, or weekly, specify the start time (in hours, minutes, and seconds), as well as set up the recurrence parameters (from 10 minutes up to 5 hours).
What’s more, you can activate a reminder that counts down a custom time value until a task is activated and pick the action that you want to execute, namely power-on, stand by, restart, hibernate, shut down, log off, lock session, or close the monitor. It is important to mention that you can automatically start up your computer if it’s been in the hibernation or standby mode.
Leaving aside the shutdown sessions that the program is able to deal with, there’s support for extra actions that can be enabled in order to clear up the Recycle Bin, Windows temporary files, and Internet Explorer’s browsing history, cookies, and temporary files, back up a certain folder, as well as launch and terminate a custom program (EXE file format).
Macros give you the possibility to record keystrokes and mouse clicks, as well as playback them. Additionally, you may open a custom audio file (e.g. MP3, WMA, WAV, MIDI) and URL, choose between several preset messages or enter your own one, and update the client computer schedule from HTTP server (provided that you first exported the schedule to HTTP server).
Extra features and configuration settings
Auto Power-on Shut-down lets you automatically shut down the computer at a user-defined time or activate a countdown timer, synchronize your PC's time with an atomic clock server by selecting from several preset options, import/export tasks, and uninstall the utility.
When it comes to tweaking the configuration settings, you can make the application always run minimized, protect your computer during your absence by your system password, encrypt the program by setting up passwords for making sure other users cannot alter your settings, change the language, run the program as a Windows service, as well as automatically log on at Windows startup by specifying your username and password (this particular feature works only on Win XP/Vista/7/8/8.1).
The Good
Another great thing about this utility is that it can get past the Windows login screen, provided that you have specified the username and password, thus allowing you to quickly gain access to your screen without having to wait a couple of minutes until it boots into the operating system.
