scheduled shut-down

Hi, have tried using WinXp's Scheduled Tasks to get my laptop to shut down at a specific time. But it wont run as asked, instead giving "...task did not run as no user account password was entered" as a reason.

But i'm pretty sure i dont have a user account password as i've never set one up. I am the only user on the computer and nothing is password locked, so...
any suggestions? i'm fairly sure everything else is correct

 

have you tried setting a password and entering it? you can make your computer auto-login at boot without prompting for your pw and it doesn't have to promptyou on resume from screensaver/hibernate/standby/etc

 

hmmm... is there no other way? passwords arent my strong suit. i was looking for some type of alternative software? but i'll try this

 

or u can just make up a small bat file and call it from ur task scheduler
http://www.aumha.org/win5/a/shutcut.php

cheers ...

 

I use PowerOff to do this. It is a small freeware app that will sit in the task tray when you have set it and can easily be cancelled. This gives the option to schedule a time to shut down as well as other options like log off, hibernate etc. You can also use it to control a remote pc in this manner and it has an option to force apps to close if certain applications stop your pc from shutting down normally when they are running:

http://users.pandora.be/jbosman/applications.html

 

Is it really worth wasting a whole process on an app to shut down the computer at a specified time?

 

It can be if it is 100% reliable and using minimal resources.