Ultra Shutdown

Ultra Shutdown is a tool that offers a quick means of shutting down, restarting, locking, hibernating, suspending, or logging off your computer. This action can be performed immediately or scheduled for a later time.

The setup is simple but, although this isn't mentioned, the program creates an entry in the Windows autostart sequence, so it automatically runs every time you turn on the PC. This setting can be disabled later.

It places an icon in the systray at launch and displays a small frame on the center of the screen, which can be repositioned with the mouse cursor. Just be careful not to accidentally click the buttons, because they will auto-execute a power feature.

Each power option is shown when opening the icon's right click menu. You can put together a scheduler for any shutdown mode. It's possible to consult a calendar to select a date and sharp time for a one-time event, or to make the task recurrent daily or weekly on a specific day and time.

Surprisingly, the utility doesn't implement a countdown timer too. On the other hand, it gives you the possibility to create multiple shutdown tasks, as well as to remove any of them from the list if you change your mind.

Plus, you can enable and customize keyboard shortcuts for executing each shutdown mode on the spot, make the toolbar stay on top of other windows, prevent autorun at system startup, activate password protection, play sound on shutdown, and hide the warning message.

Ultra Shutdown has an extra function dedicated to cleaning the computer, which is deployed right before the shutdown task. You can instruct it to empty the Recycle Bin and erase the Recent Document list, as well as to clear typed URLs and history in Internet Explorer, history of files played in Windows Media Player, cookies, Paintbrush history, and the TEMP folder.

Bottom line is that Ultra Shutdown has practical options for creating a scheduler with multiple power options to execute at different times. The interface's design could use some work, though.