WinControl

Working on a computer on a daily basis doesn’t just mean sitting all day, and it requires a lot of mental effort. Chances are you forget about some basic thing, such as shutting down your computer when done. Luckily, you can rely on specialized applications like WinControl to schedule these sorts of power options.

The application comes in a pretty lightweight package, which means, on the one hand, that you don’t have to go through a setup process to make it work. On the other hand, it’s also possible to have it stored on a USB flash drive to use wherever necessary. Just make sure that the computer you use it on is already equipped with .NET Framework.

As far as the visual style goes, there’s not a lot of effort invested in the design, but this doesn’t make the application difficult to figure out. A bunch of controls are at your disposal to easily set the desired action, which can be shutdown, restart, or lock, as well as a couple of fields to set the date and time when the action to be performed.

The date drop-down menu allows for an easy selection of the exact day through the calendar which shows up. An exact time also needs to be configured, and there’s a 24 hour clock to configure in this regard. The last step of the process is the simple selection of the action, which is either shutdown or restart, while locking is done on the spot.

Unfortunately, the application doesn’t come with any advanced features, such as a better schedule mode, or at least a recurrent option for configured actions. This means that you need to specify date, time, and action for every attempt.

Bottom line is that applications like WinControl can even come in handy to power off your computer in case you happen to fall asleep during a movie late at night. Sadly, this particular one is fitted with a rather poor set of features, even if it bundles them together in a simple design, which you can carry around on a thumb drive.