The other day I discovered a free and very cool command line utility that lets you control a wide variety of PC functions. I was looking for a tool which would let me instantly put both of my monitors it low-power mode without having to wait for the screensaver or physically power them off. I could then assign this command to a hotkey on my Microsoft 4000 keyboard for one touch monitor sleeping.
As it turns out NirSoft makes a great utility that does much more, and seems to work with Windows 7 x64. It’s called NirCmd, and is very tiny at just 29K and requires no installer. It can do things like mute, change volume levels, start a screen saver, open or close CD-ROM drives, minimize windows, and a lot more.
To accomplish the task of instant power saving mode for my monitor I assigned the following command line to the “1” hotkey on my keyboard:
“D:Admin ShareSoftware-ClientNirSoftnircmd.exe” monitor off
Now all I have to do is push the “1” assignable hot key and viola, both monitors instantly power down. You can find the utility here.
