Reboot your computer automatically each night

Windows comes with a little-known application called Shutdown.exe. You can use it in conjunction with Windows’ built-in scheduler either to shut down or restart your PC at any specified time.

To set this up, open the Start menu, type “scheduled tasks” and click the first entry that appears. Or, if you’re using Windows XP, open the Control Panel and double-click the Scheduled Tasks icon. Once the task scheduler starts, add a new task. When, in the course of adding the task, you are asked which application you want Windows to run, click the Browse button, and browse to Windows and then the System32 subfolder. Within Sytem32, you will find shutdown.exe. Double click that to add it to the task scheduler, and complete the task scheduling wizard.

When you’ve finished adding the task, right-click the new task name, and select Properties from the pop-up menu. In the resulting Properties dialog box, place the mouse cursor at the end of the command in the Run text box, add a space, and then type “/r,” without the quotation marks. The “/r” means that the shutdown command should restart your computer rather than shutting it down. While you are in the Properties dialog box, you can also click the Schedule tab to fine-tune when the automated restart procedure occurs.