Sure enough, shutting down your PC only requires you to press a few mouse buttons, and doesn’t usually take more than a few seconds. However, you might want it to automatically do this while you’re away, in which case applications like RTSoftware ShutDown Timer come with the right set of tools to create shutdown schedules.

The installation process takes little time and effort, letting you check out the set of features before you realize. The main window is brought up on launch, with the interface being pretty intuitive, allowing individuals of all levels of experience to get acquainted in only a few seconds.

As the name clearly points out, the core function is to turn off your computer when you’re not around. The action is selected from a drop-down menu. However, the set of power options you get to choose from is rather poor, with only shutdown, brute shutdown, restart, brute restart, and logoff. Apart from power option, you can also choose to have the monitor switched off when confirming changes.

Needless to say that you also need to configure time options for the task to be a proper scheduler. It too is picked from a drop down menu, with numerical values ranging from 1 to 120 minutes, which means 2 hours. When changes are saved, the application minimizes to the tray area, performing the selected operation when time comes.

Unfortunately, there’s no built-in alert system to warn you in advance so you have time to save data, and this can be frustrating, especially because brute operations can’t be canceled, and all unsaved changes are automatically discarded. What’s more, you can’t have options trigger whenever the system is idle for a specific time.

In conclusion, RTSoftware ShutDown Timer comes with good intentions, letting you create tasks to have the PC automatically turned off when you’re not around to do so. However, the set of power options is limited, time range rather poor, with no method of using system resources in this regard.