iPower

Accessing Windows features is possible through different methods, even through the default methods. More than that, there are also third-party alternatives which let you customize nearly everything for both fast access and practicality. For instance, iPower allows you to easily trigger power options from the tray area.

One of its main advantages is portability, saving you some time and effort otherwise required to go through a setup process. As such, it can be used on other computers directly from a thumb drive as your personal shutdown method. Registry entries are not modified in the process, thus keeping the health status of the target PC intact.

iPower is the type of app which doesn’t want to stay in your way, and thus only comes with a tray icon and associated menu. You easily identify it, but be careful when trying it out so you don’t trigger power options accidentally and lose any unsaved data.

The list of available options isn’t abundant, and you’re only able to perform shutdown, restart, or log off. These are triggered at the press of a button, so it’s a good idea to save everything before activating any of the options at your disposal. Unfortunately, you can’t add more options, or set up a schedule for automation.

The next time you reach the desktop the application needs to be launched again, because there’s no option to make it run with Windows. There is a workaround though, and this means manually placing a shortcut of the program’s executable inside the system Startup folder.

Taking everything into consideration, we can state that iPower is a lightweight tool which merely offers an alternative way to shut down your computer. Overall practicality is rather questionable, especially since there’s no built-in scheduler to have the PC turned off without your intervention.