How do I find the install time and date of Windows?

windows installation

Another question elligeable for a 'code-challenge': here are some source code executables to answer the problem, but they are not complete.
Will you find a vb script that anyone can execute on his/her computer, with the expected result ?

systeminfo|find /i "original"

would give you the actual date... not the number of seconds ;)

But (caveat), as noted in the 2021 comments by Salman A and AutoMattTick

If Windows was updated to a newer version, this seems to give the date on which Windows was RE-installed.

As Sammy comments, find /i "install" gives more than you need.
And this only works if the locale is English: It needs to match the language.
For Swedish this would be "ursprungligt" and "ursprüngliches" for German.

Andy Gauge proposes in the comments:

shave 5 characters off with
systeminfo|find "Original"

In Windows PowerShell script, you could just type:

PS > $os = get-wmiobject win32_operatingsystemPS > $os.ConvertToDateTime($os.InstallDate) -f "MM/dd/yyyy"

By using WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation)

If you do not use WMI, you must read then convert the registry value:

PS > $path = 'HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion'PS > $id = get-itemproperty -path $path -name InstallDatePS > $d = get-date -year 1970 -month 1 -day 1 -hour 0 -minute 0 -second 0## add to hours (GMT offset)## to get the timezone offset programatically:## get-date -f zzPS > ($d.AddSeconds($id.InstallDate)).ToLocalTime().AddHours((get-date -f zz)) -f "MM/dd/yyyy"

The rest of this post gives you other ways to access that same information. Pick your poison ;)

In VB.Net that would give something like:

Dim dtmInstallDate As DateTimeDim oSearcher As New ManagementObjectSearcher("SELECT * FROM Win32_OperatingSystem")For Each oMgmtObj As ManagementObject In oSearcher.Get    dtmInstallDate =        ManagementDateTimeConverter.ToDateTime(CStr(oMgmtO bj("InstallDate")))Next

In Autoit (a Windows scripting language), that would be:

;Windows Install Date;$readreg = RegRead("HKLM\SOFTWARE\MICROSOFT\WINDOWS NT\CURRENTVERSION\", "InstallDate")$sNewDate = _DateAdd( 's',$readreg, "1970/01/01 00:00:00")MsgBox( 4096, "", "Date: " & $sNewDate )Exit

In Delphy 7, that would go as:

Function GetInstallDate: String;Var  di: longint;  buf: Array [ 0..3 ] Of byte;Begin  Result := 'Unknown';  With TRegistry.Create Do  Begin    RootKey := HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE;    LazyWrite := True;    OpenKey ( '\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion', False );    di := readbinarydata ( 'InstallDate', buf, sizeof ( buf ) );//    Result := DateTimeToStr ( FileDateToDateTime ( buf [ 0 ] + buf [ 1 ] * 256 + buf [ 2 ] * 65535 + buf [ 3 ] * 16777216 ) );showMessage(inttostr(di));    Free;  End;End;

As an alternative, CoastN proposes in the comments:

As the system.ini-file stays untouched in a typical windows deployment, you can actually get the install-date by using the following oneliner:
(PowerShell): (Get-Item "C:\Windows\system.ini").CreationTime

windows installation

In regedit.exe go to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\InstallDate

It's given as the number of seconds since January 1, 1970. (Note: for Windows 10, this date will be when the last feature update was installed, not the original install date.)

To convert that number into a readable date/time just paste the decimal value in the field "UNIX TimeStamp:" of this Unix Time Conversion online tool.

windows installation

We have enough answers here but I want to put my 5 cents.

I have Windows 10 installed on 10/30/2015 and Creators Update installed on 04/14/2017 on top of my previous installation. All of the methods described in the answers before mine gives me the date of the Creators Update installation.