Ever since I switched to Windows 7 on my laptop, which had previously shut down within seconds while running on Windows XP, the slow shutdown has been nagging me. If you also happen to be looking for ways to kick-start a Windows 7 slow shutdown, look no further! Here I will introduce you to 3 ways to optimize or speed up the logoff process, so that you can leave the office or get into bed faster.

Prologue

I tested these tips one after the other on my Windows 7 netbook (which shut down significantly faster after upgrading to 2GB RAM). I booted into Windows, started some standard programs, including Skype and Chrome with several different tabs open, waited until they had fully loaded, and then shut down the computer. In its native state, the shutdown took 32 seconds from clicking the ‘Shutdown’ button until the laptop had fully shut down.

Initial shutdown time on test machine: 32 seconds

1. Reduce Timeout To Kill Service Or App

Before Windows shuts down, it attempts to properly close all running processes. If a service doesn’t close immediately, Windows waits for a few seconds, until it prompts the user that the service is not responding to the shutdown request. The amount of this waiting time is defined by registry keys and you can reduce it.

These are two fairly harmless registry hacks. If you follow the steps outlined in this article, it should in no way harm your system. Nevertheless, I have to issue a warning:

Editing the registry can damage your operating system! I or MakeUseOf take no responsibility whatsoever!  Make a backup of your registry before continuing.

For the first hack, click the key combination > [WINDOWS] + [R], type > regedit into the text field, and click > OK to launch the registry editor.

In the registry editor, navigate to this folder:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control

Within that folder (on the right) find and double-click the string > WaitToKillServiceTimeout.

In the > Edit String window, change the > Value data from the default of 12000 (12 seconds) to 2000 (2 seconds). Click > OK to save the change.

For the second hack, navigate to the following location via the registry editor:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop

On the right, find and double-click the string > WaitToKillAppTimeout.

If this entry does not exist, you can create it. Right-click into the folder and click through > New > String Value, and name it > WaitToKillAppTimeout.

Set > Value data to 2000, click > OK.

In the same registry folder, if you see an entry called > AutoEndTasks, set its > Value data to 1, then close the registry editor.

Shutdown time: 27 seconds

2. Create a Fast Shutdown Shortcut

As of Windows 2000, Windows has come with a remote shutdown tool to shut down and restart Windows. You can control this tool through the command line, but a much faster alternative is to create a shortcut.

• Right-click your Windows 7 desktop and select > New > Shortcut.
• Enter > shutdown.exe -s -t 00 -f in the location field, click > Next, give the shortcut a descriptive name, e.g. Shut Down Computer, and click Finish.

The letters (options) added above tell the tool to shut down (-s) with a timeout of zero seconds (-t 00), and to force running applications to close without forewarning the user (-f). Basically, it unites the registry hacks from the first tip in the shutdown process. You can see a full list of options when typing > shutdown.exe into the command prompt, which you can open via > [WINDOWS] + [R] then type > cmd into the text field and click > OK.

You can move this shortcut from the desktop to your quick launch bar or pin it to the taskbar. Double-click the shortcut to instantly shut down the system.

This trick is courtesy of Seven Forums.

Shutdown time: 24 seconds

3. Brute-Force Method

This method is also known as hard boot, as it is typically used to shut down and immediately reboot the computer. It should be used with extreme caution!

If you’re in a hurry and cannot wait for 20 seconds or if your computer responds slowly or even froze, simply hold the power button for several seconds and Windows will shut down immediately. Since this method literally kills not only the operating system, but also the hardware, it should not be used as a routine way of shutting down your computer. In a worst case scenario, it could cause your hard drive to crash.

Shutdown time: 5 seconds

Epilogue

Finally, you may experience an issue that can not be solved with the two hacks above. If you see a message saying “1 program sill needs to close: (Waiting for) Task Host Window”, then you should look into this Hotfix released by Microsoft.

Moreover, a slow logoff can be caused by outdated drivers or antivirus software. Therefore update all your drivers, remove antivirus programs like Norton and McAfee and replace them with a better alternative, such as Avast or Avira AntiVir. Note that fingerprint scanners have been known to cause a particularly slow log-off.

For more Windows 7 tricks and fixes, check out the following articles:

• 15 Best Windows 7 Tips and Hacks
• 12 More Windows 7 Tips & Hacks
• Top 5 Most Common Windows 7 Problems and How to Fix Them

How fast does your computer shut down and which method/s do you use? Or do you ever shut down Windows at all?

But apart from plain old errors, there are also some bugs and Easter Eggs hidden in all versions of Windows. Care to discover 5 of them?

1. Naming & Renaming Folders

For the first one, try to create a folder named CON and you will see the following thing happening:

The same thing happens when you try any of the following names:

PRN, LPT1, LPT2, (…), LPT9, NUL, COM1, (…), COM9, and CLOCK$

All of the above names are reserved device names, which cannot be used as file names or folder names, regardless of the file extension. This is a relic from DOS, which has made its way through all versions of Windows, including Windows 7.

Source: Wikipedia

2. Advanced Calculations

Let’s do some basic maths together. Please use your head first. Highlight the next two lines to see the respective answers.

What is the square root of four? It’s two, isn’t it?

And what do you get if you subtract two from two? Zero, right?

Now let’s do the above calculation using the Windows calculator. Type in 4, take the square root and from the result subtract 2. What do you get now?

See why they don’t want you to use calculators at school?

To my knowledge, there is no explanation for this result. The operation returns different numbers in different versions of Windows, so it’s possibly a bug by design or an Easter Egg and not some weird functional error. What was your result?

3. Notepad Bug (XP Only)

This bug no longer works in Windows Vista or Windows 7, but if you’re still running Windows XP, give it a try.

Launch Notepad and type the following sentence: Bush hid the facts

Now save the file as anything you like, close it and open it again. What do you see?

If you did this in Windows XP, you probably see some weird unicode characters or Chinese characters like in the screenshot above. By the way, I have to admit that I ‘forged’ the screenshot because I no longer run Windows XP.

The explanation for this bug lies in the Windows function ‘IsTextUnicode’. When a text file is encoded in Windows-1252 it is interpreted as UTF-16LE, resulting in the so-called mojibake. It means that Notepad recognizes unicode characters representing Chinese characters and translates them back into Chinese characters.

Source: Wikipedia

4. Microsoft Word Trick

Open Microsoft Word and type the following: =rand (5,10)

What happens is that Word creates 5 paragraphs, each containing 10 identical sentences. The sentence will vary, depending on the primary language of your operating system. On English Windows, you will see this sentence: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

This is not a bug, it’s a feature! Many of you certainly know that the above sentence contains all letters of the alphabet. In this case it’s nothing more than a dummy or placeholder. Depending on the numbers you pick, you can make it appear in many more paragraphs and copies. The trick is also known as =rand (200,99).

5. Solitaire Bug (XP Only)

Here is another trick that apparently disappeared in Windows 7. Please try it if you have Windows XP.

Open Solitaire and click the following key combination: [ALT] + [SHIFT] + [2]

When you click the above key combination, the game ends right there and you see the cards jumping to the front in waves, as they do when a game is completed successfully.

What did you see when you tried to reproduce the above bugs and what are your favorite Windows Easter Eggs?

Image credits: Antonov Roman

We’re always looking for hacks and fixes to everyday iTunes problems and listening to iTunes users to see what they’re still troubled with. Since Ping is one of the newer features in iTunes, Apple is only just realising that many people have legitimate reasons to want to turn it off. So it’s understandable that few people have worked out the best ways to disable the feature yet. Thankfully, it’s quite easy to disable Ping in two very effective ways.

Ping is essentially a social network within iTunes. It allows you to share details of your iTunes purchases, favourite music and any reviews of albums that you care to make. Itunes Ping also allows you to receive social recommendations for music based on what your friends like and what you’ve purchased. For many people, this is just a bit of fun. But, for others this is something they don’t want available for themselves or their children. Not everyone wants to automatically share their purchases with the world, which is what occurs in Ping when you buy through the iTunes store.

Recently we have discussed how to make the iTunes window size control buttons horizontal rather than vertical, talked through the process of moving an iTunes library to an external drive, shown how to use Applescript to instantly play your favourite playlist from a keyboard shortcut, featured how to automatically add downloaded music to iTunes, explained how to use Genius playlists, found great ways to remove duplicates from iTunes, documented the best ways to troubleshoot iTunes issues, written a PDF manual on iTunes and we’ve answered many more questions about iTunes from readers. Today it’s Ping’s turn to be fixed.

Please note that we’re showing screenshots from a Mac iTunes install, but these tricks will work equally well for Windows users.

1. Disable Ping Via Parental Controls

Disabling Ping via parental controls is something that will only be in effect on this specific installation and user account, therefore it is only a temporary fix. This can also only be done using the newer releases of iTunes – even version 10.0.1 was unable to disable Ping this way. Upgrade if you like, or simply use option two instead.

Go to iTunes > Preferences and click on Parental Controls. In the list of options for services to disable, check the Ping checkbox and save. If you’re disabling Ping in order to protect your children from using it, obviously you should ensure the Parental settings are locked also.

As you can see, Ping is no longer available in the left hand sidebar.

2. Disable Ping Via iTunes Account

This is a more permanent solution to disabling Ping. By choosing to disable this way, you effectively remove yourself from the Ping network and delete all user activity you may have previously made. The permanent deletion of activity occurs after you have disabled Ping for seven days, so you have a little leeway to change your mind if you like. Reviews will remain associated with your name unless you deliberately delete them in the Manage Reviews section of your account. Don’t worry about it too much, though. If you decide later to enable Ping, iTunes will immediately populate your account with details of your purchase history if you want it to.

Use the left-hand sidebar to navigate to the iTunes store. On the far right of the store, you’ll see access to your account controls in both the quick links and a drop-down menu below your name. Click on “Account“.

You’ll then need to verify your account details and click on “Account Info“.

There’s a section dedicated to Ping, where you can edit your Ping profile and turn Ping off – click “Turn Off“.

You’ll also need to verify that request.

Further down the page, there’s an option to manage “Recommendations and Ping Posting“. You’ll also want to turn this off to avoid future annoyances from Ping when making purchases from iTunes.

You’re done! No more Ping!

Will you be disabling iTunes Ping? Which method will you use and why? Let us know in the comments!

Image Credit: ShutterStock

Wouldn’t it be cool if your computer acted a little bit more like one of those advanced computers you read about in science fiction novels, where you can simply walk up to it and it can sense that you are there and respond accordingly? I mean, these days almost every computer comes with a webcam of some sort, often embedded right above the monitor, so the potential for smarter, more automated computers is there.

There may be some newer computer systems that already do this, but for the most part people are still stuck with tapping the keyboard to disable the screen saver. I started thinking about this the other day and decided to try to put together a combination of applications and scripts that would accomplish this simple automation task (yes, these are the sorts of things automation engineers do for fun).

The Motion-Detection Screensaver Solution

What I came up with was an application-script combination that would constantly monitor the webcam for motion, and then instantly run a script that would remove the screensaver. Deciding on the webcam software was easy. I was tempted to use the Active Webcam software that I previously wrote about, but then I realized that YawCam, which Mark covered before, is much simpler and more effective for this sort of task.

Once you install and run YawCam (and give them a nice donation for offering us this free software), you’ll see the following screen over the webcam video.

Click on “Window” and then choose Motion detection from the dropdown list. On the next screen, you’ll see a page where the motion detection software logs each time a motion event takes place (when the detection is activated). Click on the “Actions” tab to set up the file that you’ll have YawCam run whenever motion is detected.

On this screen, you’ll see a “Settings…” button next to Run.exe. Select the checkbox next to “Run.exe” and then click on the settings button.

Click on the Activate check box for flood control (you don’t want the script launching 50 times a second), and put some delay (I put 10 seconds, but you can use up to 60 or more). The next step would be to click on the browse button and choose your script file that you want to run. Alas, you don’t have one yet. Don’t worry, I’ve got you covered.

You’ll notice that the default filter looks for .bat or .exe files, but you can also choose a Windows Script file (.wsf). For this article, I hunted for a whole list of ways to kill the screensaver via script. I searched for programs that already exist, or batch job methods that disable the screen saver. In each of those cases the screensaver stays disabled – not good. So then I turned to methods to send keyboard keys or mouse clicks to Windows – and sure enough, that was the solution.

After digging around Microsoft help files, I found the SendKeys code that simulates pressing the “Enter” button on the keyboard.

The following is the script.

<package>
<job>
<script language=”VBScript”>
set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject(“WScript.Shell”)
WshShell.SendKeys(“{ENTER}”)
</script>
</job>
</package>

Save this script to a .wsf file and point the Action event in YawCam to that file. Now, every time there’s motion in the webcam, it’ll kick off your script, which simulates pressing the keyboard enter key – which will disable the screen saver.

If you find that your script isn’t getting launched or the motion detection doesn’t seem to be working (or it’s too sensitive), make sure to check out the “Settings” tab in YawCam. Make sure that the tolerance is high enough so it’s not too sensitive, and make sure the sensitivity is high enough so that it picks up when you sit down in front of the computer.

As with most automated solutions, this one isn’t perfect yet because you have to turn it off when you actually want to use the computer or it’ll keep sending the “Enter” key whenever there’s motion. I’m sure there are other creative ways you can probably perfect this automated screensaver trick. The solution above will work best for situations where you have something running for hours (like a virus scan) and you want to just walk up to the screen and have it automatically show you what’s going on, but then the screensaver will reactivate after you walk away.

Did you install this automated screensaver setup? How well did it work for you? Did you find a way to perfect the system even more? Share your insights in the comments section below.

Image Credit: Vivek Chugh

MakeUseOf’s latest guide, Windows On Speed, includes all the information you need to speed up your slow PC!

This manual explains why Windows slows down and what you can do to prevent this from happening too quickly. We will explain how to store your data to reduce disk fragmentation, how you should properly remove programs to avoid registry junk, which system maintenance tools you should use to maintain a top notch performance, how to protect your system from malware attacks, and how to physically clean your machine to avoid hardware damage and failure.

We will also provide a troubleshooting guide for already affected systems and steps to cure the slow motion.

DOWNLOAD Windows On Speed

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This FREE manual outlines everything you need to know about speeding up Windows, including:

• Why Windows slows down over time
• How to separate your data and operating systems with partitioning
• The importance of defragmenting
• Free software for speeding up your PC
• The perils and overpromise of registry cleaners
• Easy steps you can take to speed up your PC

DOWNLOAD Windows On Speed

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Like all MakeUseOf manuals, the “Windows On Speed” is completely free.

Please share it with your friends on Facebook and Twitter. Enjoy!

The complexity of the validation used, however, has increased over time. Today, Microsoft has online activation servers that must validate your installation key, and your installation key is often tied to your computer. Installing a copy of Windows with the same key on a different computer can cause issues, but it’s possible to get around them.

Understanding Different Versions of Windows

The conditions under which you might need to hassle with Windows activation vary depending on the version of Windows that you own. Microsoft sells its operating systems with different licenses attached, and those licenses impact how validation works when you try to remove Windows activation from one computer and install it on another.

If you go to the store and buy a copy of Microsoft Windows you’re likely buying a standard retail license. A retail license lets you install Windows on one computer. If you try to install it twice, Windows activation can tell (so long the computers have a connection to the Internet) and will call foul.

However, it’s likely you instead have an OEM copy of Windows. OEM stands for Original Equipment Manufacturer, and this label is slapped onto software that comes pre-installed or packaged with a computer. OEM copies of Windows come with a license that only allows Windows to be installed on the machine the manufacturer shipped. You can’t take the OEM copy and install it on any other computer – if you try, Windows activation will notice.

Finally, you may end up with a volume license which makes it possible to install Windows on multiple machines at once. The Windows 7 family pack is a good example of this; the activation keys that come with the family pack can be used on three computers simultaneously.

Removing Windows Activation

Unfortunately, there is no Microsoft tool that lets you remove your Windows activation from a computer once you have installed the operating system. This is not surprising when you think about it; if you could simply remove your activation, there would be no point to the OEM license. There are cracks, of course, but these are not difficult for Microsoft to counter over time by releasing new updates. If you want your copy of Windows 7 to work reliably you need to legitimately install Windows with an activation key.

So What Do I Do?

Pick up the phone!

Oddly, Microsoft is not strict about making sure you obey the terms of their software license. They are often happy to help you activate a copy of Windows on a new or upgraded computer even if you have an OEM license. They just want to talk to you about it in person.

The process is simple. Install Windows on a computer and insert the activation key as normal. When Windows starts and you connect to the Internet you will receive an error message letting you know that your copy of Windows is not genuine. Click on the text link that lets you solve the problem online and try to activate the key again. When it fails once more, you are given the chance to call into Microsoft support.

Do this. You will end up speaking to a representative who will ask you the circumstances of your installation. While these representatives are likely to let you activate even if you’re blatantly moving an OEM license, a simple white lie can help smooth the gears. Just let them know that you’ve upgraded your computer, causing the activation to flag. They’ll press a few buttons on their end and presto! You’ve just activated your Windows key on a different computer, and since it’s 100% legit, you don’t need to worry about a new Windows update messing with your PC.

Conclusion

This is effectively a method of removing your Windows activation from the computer that your copy of Windows was originally installed on, because the key will no longer work on the original PC. If you do boot up the original PC and allow it to connect to the Internet you will soon be hit with an error message letting you know your copy of Windows is no longer genuine. Which is correct, because your activation has been transferred.

To be absolutely clear; this DOES NOT duplicate your Windows activation.

Also, be warned that Microsoft does keep track of how your activation key is used. They will take notice if you’re calling into their hotline once a week to transfer an activation key. Microsoft could be more strict about this process than they currently are. Don’t give Redmond a reason to change its policy.

Though I could go on about many features that turn out very useful in Windows 7, all of which you can see listed and explained in detail in the free Windows 7 PDF manual, the taskbar or superbar is perhaps the most noticeable change. With it comes many beautiful previews and jumplists, but I also have to mention one not-so-welcomes feature.

The fact that some applications integrate with the taskbar so their program icons attach themselves to the taskbar with no signs of leaving it can be somewhat annoying. If they’re already showing up in the system tray, why do they need to be open as a pinned program in the taskbar? Some of the programs I have noticed doing this include ZScreen (the most advanced screen capture program sans image editor) and Skype.

There are two ways to remove the Skype icon that doesn’t seem to leave the taskbar in Windows 7. The first method really depends on what version of Skype you might have, and is a bit easier to complete as it doesn’t require a Skype restart.

Using Skype’s Built-in Option To Remove The Taskbar Icon

Open Skype and in the menu bar, locate the Tools menu.

Under it, you’ll see Options. After you click on it, navigate to the Advanced tab and click on it.

You’ll see an option on the right of Advanced Settings, that says Keep Skype on the taskbar while I’m signed in.

Uncheck the box and click OK to go back to the main interface. The pinned program should have disappeared from the taskbar. If that doesn’t work, or you have a different version of Skype that doesn’t have the checkbox, read on.

Changing Compatibility Mode

Let’s say you have the latest version of Skype but still don’t see that Keep Skype on the taskbar option at all, try this. Type Skype in the Start search box, right-click on the program icon and click on Properties.

In the Properties box, select the Compatibility tab. Check the box that says Run this program in compatibility mode for box so you can select the previous OS with updates, which is Windows Vista (Service Pack 2).

Now click OK. Quit and restart Skype. You should only have the system tray icon for Skype, but if you still see the persistent taskbar Skype icon, try a different OS in the Skype Properties dialog box. Windows Vista (Service Pack 2) actually didn’t work for me, while choosing plain Windows Vista did the trick.

Does the permanent icon on the taskbar annoy you? Let us know in the comments!

This article shows you some more advanced ways to keep an almost accurate time on your Windows 7 computer. Note that these strategies also work in Windows XP and Windows Vista, they may just look a tiny little bit different.

In case you noticed that your computer has serious issues maintaining the correct time, i.e. beyond a few seconds tolerance, you should check out my article 3 Reasons Why Your Windows Computer Starts Losing Its Time & Date.

Synchronise Your Computer With Internet Time

In Windows 7 your computer is typically set to synchronise with an Internet time server once per week. Jeffry has recently written a detailed article explaining how to set up synchronization in Windows: How To Make All Your PC Times Match With An Atomic Clock Sync.

For this tool to work, make sure that the date on your machine is correct, otherwise your computer cannot synchronise its clock. If your system clock displays the right date and is connected to the Internet and still fails to synchronise with any of the offered servers, you may have to examine your firewall. It must not block the network time protocol (NTP).

Unfortunately, the default Windows 7 tool does not allow you to change the schedule. Neither can you add your own choice of servers.

Create A Custom Schedule To Synchronise Your Computer Time

Syncing its time once a week is fine for most computers. However, some internal clocks are less accurate than others and if accuracy matters, you might want to have the synchronization happen more often. This is possible if you’re ready to dive into System Control and create a scheduled task.

Go to > Start and type > Task Scheduler in the search field, then open the respective result. Within the Task Scheduler Library on the left hand side, click through to the > Microsoft > Windows > Time Synchronization branch and click > Create Task in the menu on the right hand side.

In the Create Task window > General tab, click the > Change User or Group… button and set it to run as > LOCAL SERVICE. Then check the box to > Run with highest privileges. Under > Configure for: select your operating system.

Switch to the > Triggers tab, click the > New… button, and enter your preferred settings. Before you > OK, make sure the box next to > Enabled is checked.

Now go to the > Actions tab. You have to set two actions for this task. The first makes sure the Windows Time Service is running and the second triggers the actual time sync.

Click the > New… button and enter the following details:

• Action: Start a program
• Program/script: %windir%\system32\sc.exe
• Add arguments: start w32time task_started

Click > OK and click the > New… button again to create the second action with these details:

• Action: Start a program
• Program/script: %windir%\system32\w32tm.exe
• Add arguments: /resync

When done > OK the second action.

Now open the > Conditions tab. Remove the checkmark that restricts to > Start the task only if the computer is on AC power. Instead, do check the box to > Start only if  ['any connection'] is available (paraphrased).

Finally, in the > Settings tab check > Run task as soon as possible after a scheduled start is missed.

You can test the task by intentionally messing up your computer time and then running the task manually. Just right-click on the task you created and select > Run from the menu.

Resource: PretentiousName.com

Maintain Accurate Time Using Software Tools

Due to its default setting of syncing only once per week, the Windows Time Service is not able to maintain a highly accurate time. The error is in the 1 to 2 seconds range and no guarantees are given. Microsoft states bluntly that they “do not guarantee and do not support the accuracy of the W32Time service between nodes on a network. The W32Time service is not a full-featured NTP solution that meets time-sensitive application needs.”

If you’re not satisfied with the default tool Windows provides and can’t be bothered with Control Panel options, you should look into software options.

Jeffry has introduced Atomic Clock Sync in his article How To Make All Your PC Times Match With An Atomic Clock Sync. It allows you to review your time and date settings, change the synchronization interval, and repair the Windows Time Service. The tool is available for Windows NT4 through Windows 7.

AtomTime

This is a nifty alternative to Atomic Clock Sync that comes packed with options. You can simply use the default settings to check and adjust your computer time. Or you can open the > Settings and check out the tool’s depth.

Let’s look at some options in the most interesting settings tabs…

• Execution: set update interval and make the tool run on startup.
• Display: display actual, local, or GMT time and display date in system tray.
• Time Servers: use default atomic clock servers or add a custom server.

Last but not least, check out the tool provided by NIST Internet Time Service (NIST Software on right hand side), which provides an accuracy in the millisecond range. Unfortunately, my tests on Windows 7 didn’t succeed.

Let us know in the comments how you synchronise your computer time.

Image Credit: robodread

The problem with batch jobs is that they were very limited. The command set was somewhat short and didn’t allow for very much functionality when it came to structured logic using if-then, for, next and while loops. 

Later, Windows Scripting Host came along. The MS Windows Scripting Host is a multi-language script utility that Microsoft started installing as standard on all PCs from Windows 98 onward. By the second generation of the tool, it was renamed to Microsoft Script Host (MSH).

A Microsoft Scripting Host Tutorial

Here at MUO, we love computer automation. For example, Varun covered Sikuli, a tool to write automation scripts, and Guy showed you how to use AutoIt to automate tasks. The cool thing about MSH is that if you have any post-Win 98 PC, you can write a “batch” script in a variety of languages.

Available languages include JScript, VBA, and VBscript. It’s also possible to write scripts in Perl, Python, PHP, Ruby or even Basic if you have the right implementation with the right scripting engine.

Personally, I know Visual Basic well, so I usually opt for VBScript. The beauty here is that you don’t need any special programming software or compiler. Just open up Notepad and write your script, just like how you wrote your batch jobs.

Without installing anything, you can write scripts in VB. The simplest script is printing text to a pop-up window, like this:

Save the file as a .vbs and Windows will recognize and run it. This is what happens when you double click on the file above:

You can write more advanced scripts utilizing the languages you’re accustomed to. For the most flexibility, place <job> and <script language=”VBScript”> (or whatever language you choose) around each segment of code in your file, and save it as a .wsf file. This way, so long as you enclose the code in the defined script language tags, you can use multiple languages in the same file.

To show you how cool this can be, I decided to write a script that would reach out to the NIST atomic clock to check the current time. If morning, it automatically opens my Thunderbird email client. If noon, it would open my browser to CNN.com. This conditional script gives you the ability to make your computer much more intelligent. If you run this script when your PC starts up, you can make it automatically launch whatever you like depending what time of day it is.

The first part of the script goes out to the time server “http://time.nist.gov:13” and gets the current time. After formatting it correctly, it sets the computer time. Credit where credit is due, this script was adapted from TomRiddle’s excellent script over at VisualBasicScript.com. To save time, always find the example code you need online, and then tweak it to your needs.

Here’s what the script does with just the code above implemented so far.

Now that the script is working and will sync my PC every time it’s launched, it’s time to have it determine what to automatically launch depending on the time of day. In Windows Scripting Host, this task is as easy as an If-Then statement checking the hour of the day in the “Now” function, and then launching the appropriate software.

When launched between 8 to 10 in the morning, this script will start up my Thunderbird email client. When run between 11am to 1pm, it’ll launch CNN.com in a browser. As you can see, just by being creating and adding a little bit of intelligence to a script file, you can do some pretty cool computer automation.

By the way, it’s a very good idea to have a reference of scripting commands handy when you write these scripts. If you’re into VBScript like me, a great resources is ss64.com, which lists all VBScript commands alphabetically on one page.

Writing scripts alone isn’t going to automate anything, because you’ll still have to manually launch them. So to complete your automation using the Windows Script Host, go into the Task Scheduler in the control panel (administrator area) and select to create a task.

The scheduler lets you launch your script upon a whole assortment of events, such as time of day or on a specific schedule, when a system event takes place, or when the computer is first booted or logged into. Here, I’m creating a scheduled task to launch my script above every time the PC starts.

This is only a very brief Windows Scripting Host tutorial. Considering the number of commands and functions available in any of these scripting languages, the possibilities to automate all sorts of cool tasks on your PC are pretty much only limited by your imagination.

Some of the best sites to find pre-written scripts that you can use or customize include the following:

• Microsoft Script Center – Straight from microsoft, and includes categories like Office, desktop, databases and active directory
• Computer Performance – This UK site offers the best selection of VBScripts that I’ve seen online.
• Computer Education – You’ll find a small collection of scripts here, but they’re very useful and they all work.
• Lab Mice – An awesome collection of batch programming resources like an assortment of logon scripts.

Have you ever used the Windows Script Host? Do you have any cool tips or examples to share? Offer your insight and share your experiences in the comments section below.

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