PC Control

Sidebar gadgets are designed to offer fast access to information and frequently used functions. Such a tool is PC Control, a lightweight utility that can help you conveniently control the power management options.
While it is just a desktop gadget, it comes in handy to any PC user out there. The application allows you to perform power-related actions once or on a regular basis, providing support for all the power functions, namely shutdown, restart, standby, log off or hibernation.
With its help, you can easily instruct the PC to run one of the aforementioned commands at a user-defined date and time in the future (you can select a certain day and hour) or over a specified time interval (up to 120 minutes) starting from the scheduling moment. Moreover, you have the possibility to set it to repeat the action on a daily basis.
Once all the settings are configured, the gadget displays the next task within its main window, along with the scheduled date and time. In addition to this, it allows you to instantly run the selected action with the push of a button, as well as cancel the scheduled task, in case you changed your mind.
No notification window is displayed before the selected action is put into effect, so it is advisable to make sure that all your data is saved and backups are created before the time of the task execution.
The application comes with full appearance customization capabilities, as you can easily change the colors of all the elements in the main window, such as the background, the title, date and time, information string, error messages, etc., in order to match your desktop theme.
There is an abundance of similar applications out there that function as shutdown schedulers, but PC Control stands out through simplicity and ease of use. Unfortunately, since it is a sidebar gadget, Windows 8 users cannot natively run it on their computers.