The idea of tracking exactly when a PC is turned on or off doesn’t exactly sound like it’ll make the most interesting of applications.

But give it a try and you’ll find Neuber Software’s PC On/Off Time really can be surprisingly useful.

If you use a particular system for work-related tasks, for instance, then finding a way to track its uptime could help you to complete a timesheet or prepare billing information.

Maybe you’re wondering precisely how much time your kids are spending on their computer? Again, PC On/Off Time should be able to reveal all.

And sometimes, simply seeing this data laid out graphically may help you notice issues you hadn’t spotted before: maybe a system is regularly left running overnight, say, or perhaps your PC doesn’t always switch to standby when it should.

The real value of PC On/Off Time, though, comes in its ease of use. There’s no agent to install, no extra Windows services left running, no background monitoring of your system – in fact, there’s nothing to install at all.  Just unzip and run the executable, it’ll analyse your PC’s event logs, and in a second or two you should see when your PC has gone into standby, been turned on or off, or even shut down unexpectedly (a blue screen crash, say) over the past three weeks.

Well, that’s the plan. The price of this convenience is that the program is reliant on your event logs being complete; if they’ve been emptied recently for some reason then you may not see quite as much information, if any at all. So if your report is a little empty, don’t immediately blame PC On/Off Time – just try again in a few days.

In our experience, though, the program generally works just fine. So if you’re looking to find out more about a particular PC’s usage patterns, then give PC On/Off Time a go – time monitoring doesn’t get much easier than this.