Automatically reboot Windows after X amount of time

August 29, 2007 3:47 PM

I work in a public library. We currently have a few dozen public use computers that are on a queueing system; however, we are planning on ordering a few new computers that will be on a different network so we are looking at different options.

What I am looking for is a freeware (or cheap) program that will automatically reboot Windows XP (or just go back to the log in screen) after a certain amount of time (and, if possible, give the user a warning a few minutes before it shuts down/logs off).

I have searched for a program, and have found several programs where you can only set a specific time, which is not what I am looking for since I want users to be logged off after a specified time of use.

Anyone have any software recommendations?

posted by toddst to Computers & Internet (8 answers total)

I would look at AutoIt for stuff like this. There are a few examples in their forums for this sort of thing.

It's free and most of the work might already be done for you. You can attach them to the login script for the machines in order to have them run as soon as someone logs in.
posted by purephase at 4:27 PM on August 29, 2007 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I've used AMP WinOFF for this. With success.
posted by ijsbrand at 4:32 PM on August 29, 2007

Response by poster: Thanks for the tips! I'm going to test both of these options tomorrow.
posted by toddst at 5:48 PM on August 29, 2007

i am pretty sure windows steadystate can do this but my experiences with that is it has slown down computer log ons and offs
posted by DJWeezy at 8:15 PM on August 29, 2007

Best answer: You can reboot just by running

c:\>shutdown -r

so you could write a batch file to be launched on boot that went something like:


sleep 3600
shutdown -r


(3600 being the number of seconds you want to allow usage).
posted by pompomtom at 11:15 PM on August 29, 2007

Response by poster: pompomtom:

Your solution looks like it might be the easiest since it will do exactly what I want. Unfortunately, I have never written a batch file. So, do I just write the commands that you gave me, save it as *.bat, and put that file in the startup folder?
posted by toddst at 9:25 AM on August 30, 2007

Response by poster: ooh, I just checked out AMP WinOFF and it looks like it will do exactly what I want it to do! Thanks for all the tips!!!
posted by toddst at 10:02 AM on August 30, 2007

for future people: yep, that's how to make a batch file.
posted by pompomtom at 10:31 PM on August 30, 2007