At one point or another you will run into a scenario when you have to leave, but your computer is in the middle of a task. It always happens at the worst times, and sometimes that task cannot be interrupted. Luckily there are some solutions.

The command prompt is an excellent tool for getting the most out of your computer because you can access tools you didn’t know you had. This includes a timed shutdown function. Once you have the command prompt open this is what you need to know:

The first thing you need to enter is “shutdown”, then “-s”. This is to tell the the computer to log of and power down. The next part is “-t”, or the time you are setting. The time has to be entered in seconds. For example, 5 minutes would be 300 seconds. To have a timed shutdown of 10 minutes the command would look like this: “shutdown -s -t 600”

If you want to cancel the shutdown, simply type “shutdown -a”

For a bit of extra fun you can add a comment using the “-c” command. To do this you just have to add “-c” into the command with the comment you want to say in parenthesis after it. For example: “shutdown -s -c “get back to work” -t 600″ will have the computer shutdown in 10 minutes and display that message.

It’s really that simple. Timed shutdowns can be very useful in the right situation, but are admittedly very niche. There are other ways to manage your computer from afar, but this is a quick solution that requires no extra programs. Other programs can be used to manage your computer from somewhere else, but those are a blog for another time.

Remember to leave a like if you enjoyed this post and leave a comment below. Subscribe for more content like this and remember to share this post with people who might enjoy it.

Picture this:

It’s 20xx, old games are getting harder to find, and the prices are skyrocketing. One day a friend says to you “You know you can get that for free, right?” They go on to explain this odd new thing called an “Emulator.” A few hours later your computer is being eaten alive by all the viruses you’ve just installed, but it doesn’t matter. You have a free copy of Pokemon.

It was always Pokemon too. If ever there was a game worth downloading: that was it. By the time emulators picked up the internal batteries of the first 3 generations of games were starting to run out. This meant that you were liable to lose your progress if you didn’t gut the cartridge and replace the battery before playing at all. Most people were not up for that.

What a lot of people also weren’t up for was the price. Pokemon games have always held their value pretty well, so the cheapest they ever get is around $15 in questionable condition. Most people I knew didn’t bother trying to buy the other titles, they just emulated them. Why wouldn’t you?

Once you knew what to look for, getting ROMs of old titles was easy and (mostly) risk free. Everyone started with Pokemon, that is just what you did. But once you knew what to do there was a world of games available to you. Plus this was a lot of people’s first experience to ROM hacks.

ROM hacks were weird. The most notable ones were for, as you might expect, Pokemon. New stories, new maps, parodies, randomizers. ROM hacks made up entire new games for free! It was unlike anything you see anymore. Of course this is because of how defensive the company clad in red is over their copyright. A few years ago most Pokemon ROMs were sandblasted off the internet before the release of a game most people don’t care about anymore.

Then again the company in question was technically in the right when they angered a massive chunk of their target audience for no profit. After all, distribution of ROMs is technically illegal. As a responsible adult I cannot advocate for such activity. So I’m going to tell you exactly what to look for so you don’t accidentally download any of these nasty files.

Whatever you do, do not go on a website such as emuparadise.me for reliable and safe access to emulators and ROMs. Especially make sure that you avoid any ROMs marked with “(trashman)”, these are exceptionally good quality and should be avoided at all costs. Finally, if you are ever in doubt on how to avoid these heinous files, there are plenty of forums and Sub-Reddits that tell you where to find ROMs. So you can avoid them, obviously.

At some point this blog became focused on Pokemon ROMs in particular. As I mentioned earlier there is a world of games out there if you look around (not that I would recommend doing so). There are also a ton of amazing ROM hacks for other games that I haven’t covered. But I suppose that is a blog for another time.

Remember to leave a like if you enjoyed this post and leave a comment below. Subscribe for more content like this and remember to share this post with people who might enjoy it.

Some software is less fortunate than others. There are a lot of games that eventually stop being supported by the developers and, unless that developer’s name begins with “N” and ends in “tendo”, copyright violations are no longer monitored. This is when software enters the realm of Abandonware. Fire up that antivirus software, this can get messy!

Maybe the antivirus comment is an overstatement but it never hurts to be too careful. Sites such as myabandonware.com make it pretty safe to look around for stuff like this. A solid Antivirus software can have your back but its better to never take that chance in the first place. Abandon ware is not an Emulator, it is the original software. You may need other files to get this stuff running. If you are ever in doubt about whether a website is safe, there are plenty of forums and sub-Reddits out there to tell you whats what. Now that the precautions are out of the way, let’s see what Abandonware has to offer.

Overall there is an insane variety of games that are available. A lot of games are very old, going back to the Apple 2, Commodore 64, and older. But there is also a lot of newer games such as The Sims, Need for Speed, and The Simpsons – Hit and Run. The last one has a notable cult-following with an active modding community. Even the first two Fallout games were Abandonware until very recently. While there are plenty of options, how do you get them running?

Work, lots of work is what it takes to get these games to run. As I said earlier, these are not Emulators. These games have to be installed properly, and in some cases registered (sort of). Emulators are way easier to get running, but tend to suffer in performance. You can get around some work by emulating the console version of a game, but its never the same.

What you need to get most Abandonware running is two things; Daemon Tools, and something for .Zip files. An unregistered copy of WinRAR fits the theme of what we’re doing but anything will do. Daemon Tools is a program for making digital disk drives. This is for installing the “disks” that contain the game files. (As a side note; Daemon Tools also comes with an antivirus software that is allegedly very good, but difficult to set up. You can opt-out of the antivirus in the installer.)

Using your .Zip program and Daemon tools you can install Abandonware games almost as if they are brand new. After they are installed, is the matter of “registration.” This can be done by tweaking game files yourself since nothing is restricted in these games. Or you can just grab a “No CD Exe” file online. These aren’t hard to find and simply get tossed into the game files. This new file is your new launcher button for your game of choice. But the game is not ready yet!

Finally, you need to run compatibility settings. You can find this by right-clicking on the game launcher and clicking “Troubleshoot compatibility.” Just select the OS the game originally was released on and it should run. If it doesn’t run then simply keep trying versions until you get the right one.

Overall getting Abandonware running is that easy! I’m kidding obviously, getting this stuff running is pretty involved. Everything I have written so far has been simplified to a degree. But if you are willing to put in the work, Abandonware offers a free way to experience old games that run just as well if not better than when they were new.

Remember to leave a like if you enjoyed this post and leave a comment below. Subscribe for more content like this and remember to share this post with people who might enjoy it.