How to Schedule Restart Windows 10 with Task Scheduler

With the Task Scheduler, you can schedule Windows restart or reboot in just a few clicks. Here’s the step-by-step guide on Windows scheduled restart.

If you run your system all day every day, having the ability to restart on schedule is very useful. When running the computer all day long, it is highly possible that there will be performance degradation over time due to any number of reasons like the number of running applications, clutter, temp files, etc. In those cases, restarting the system occasionally will help run the system smoothly. For example, you can configure Windows to restart automatically at midnight to install updates. That way, you don’t have to worry about abrupt restart or remembering to restart the system outside active hours.

So, in this quick and simple guide, let me show the steps to use the task scheduler to restart Windows computer automatically at specific times.

Note: Along with Windows 10, the steps shown below will work in Windows 7 and 8.

Steps to Schedule Restart Windows

To restart Windows automatically, we can use the task scheduler. So, follow the steps listed below to schedule restart Windows.

1. Press the Windows key to open the Start menu.
2. Type “Task Scheduler” in the bottom search field.
3. Click on the “Task Scheduler” result in the Start menu.
4. After opening the task scheduler, click on the “Create task” option.
   
5. Type a name in the Name field. The name can be anything you want. Just make sure it is descriptive.
   
6. Go to the “Triggers” tab and click “New” to create a new trigger.
   
7. Select “On a schedule” from the first drop-down menu.
8. Select “Daily” radio option and set the time you want.
9. To recur every day, type “1” in the “Recur every” field.
10. Click “Ok“.
    
11. Go to the “Actions” tab and click “New“.
    
12. Select “Start a program” from the first dropdown menu.
13. Type “%SystemRoot%\system32\shutdown.exe” in the Program/Script field.
14. Type “-r -f -t 10” in the arguments field.
15. Click “Ok“.
    
16. (Optional) Go to the “Conditions” tab and select the “Start the task only if the computer is idle” checkbox. That way, the system will only restart if it is idle. i.e, not doing anything. Click “Ok“.
    
17. You will see the newly created task in the task scheduler.
    

That is it. You’ve created a scheduled task to automatically restart Windows. From now on, Windows will reboot itself as per the task configuration. Right before restarting, it will show a little message giving any active users a chance to save the work.

As you can see, it is pretty easy to do a scheduled restart using the task scheduler tool in Windows. If you want to, you can also display a popup message using a task scheduler right before restarting the system.

Disable Automatic Restart

When you no longer need the scheduled restart task, you can disable it to prevent an automatic restart. To do that, find the task in the task scheduler, right-click on it and select the “Disable” option. If you really want to, you can delete the task by selecting the “Delete” option.

That is all. I hope that helps. If you are stuck or need some help, comment below and I will try to help as much as possible. If you like this article, check out how to startup programs with the task scheduler.