Does Windows 10 ever shut down without asking?

[Hello Paul]

Hello,

This morning I switched on my PC, loaded up Chrome and was just deleting a few emails, when suddenly, without warning, the screen turned blue (but not a Windows 7-style BSOD; I've yet to see the Windows 10 BSOD, but assume it's the same) and the "shutting down" text appeared in the middle of the screen, and my computer then shut down. I was very concerned, because I have an important client arriving in a couple of hours (happily he has postponed his arrival - he was due to show up much sooner!) and I was very worried that I might have a very unhealthy computer and be unable to do any work.

Anyway, I started it up OK, and looked in the Event Viewer to see if it had logged why this shutdown happened, but unhelpfully all it says is:

The process C:\Windows\System32\shutdown.exe (BEAST) has initiated the shutdown of computer BEAST on behalf of user BEAST\Paul for the following reason: No title for this reason could be found
Reason Code: 0x800000ff
Shutdown Type: shutdown
Comment:

During this most recent startup, nothing odd happened and no updates were installed. It seemingly shut down for no reason.

So my question is:
Should Windows 10 ever shut itself down, without asking me, just because it feels like it? And if so, is there a way I can force Windows to never do this again?

I know early versions of Windows would do this, probably to install some update, maybe with a warning to "save your work because the computer knows best and it will shut down regardless of what you, the pathetic user, want" (one of the many reasons I was a Mac-only person for a couple of decades, until Apple realised it could make $billions by churning out mediocre, slave-labour-produced shiny fashion trinkets and gave up making real computers).

Thanks in advance for any help or ideas!

~ Paul

 

[Wolfie]

Hi Paul,

sounds like you maybe sharing your computer resources with a network (possibly a bot) somewhere, did you install any software recently or sign up for something new?.

 

[davehc]

It is possible that it was a hardware overheating problem, but that theory would not correspond to the event message.
One other reason I could think of would be something concerned with updates, but I am now aware of any of those, to date, that enforce a shutdown.
Third, an last possibility, would be an item of software that you have , as said, just installed but not yet fully configured. Ccleaner, for example, springs to mind as one such. It has the ability to scan your computer and then shut it down.