how can I find out how long I have had windows installed for?

Zaphan58 · 20 Dec 2006 at 16:48

I'm about to format my XP installation I have had on for years.

How can I find out how long its been on? Just curious to know really since back in the day Win 98 was reinstalled about once a month and this has been on atleast 2 or 3 years.

Dr_Evil · 20 Dec 2006 at 16:50

ehm.. check on what date your "Windows" folder on your system drive was created perhaps?

modo77 · 20 Dec 2006 at 16:51

Check the date the windows folder was created in explorer

Vai · 20 Dec 2006 at 16:54

"systeminfo" in a command prompt.

Dr_Evil · 20 Dec 2006 at 16:56

modo77 said:
Check the date the windows folder was created in explorer

actually that doesn't work - it will give you the date when the original file/folder was burnt onto the installation Cd.

InsomniaCalls · 20 Dec 2006 at 16:57

Systeminfo isn't necessarily correct either.

Mine:

01/01/1601, 00:00:00

Zaphan58 · 20 Dec 2006 at 17:04

Hmm system info tells me I installed on January last year. Im pretty sure thats wrong.

Dr_Evil · 20 Dec 2006 at 17:08

InsomniaCalls said:
Systeminfo isn't necessarily correct either.

Mine:

Is that Windows 3.11 you've got installed there? ;-)

breamy1990 · 20 Dec 2006 at 17:34

system info is correct for me

give me 17/11/2006 which is the date i installed windows when i got this machine

InsomniaCalls · 20 Dec 2006 at 18:36

Dr_Evil said:
Is that Windows 3.11 you've got installed there?

Lemme check...
Nope, Vista.

ic1male · 21 Dec 2006 at 09:58

Interesting. Works fine on my Vista - 4/12/06.

Did you have your clock/date set correctly in the BIOS when you first installed it? Obviously, Vista will set the time itself when it finishes setup...

NathanE · 21 Dec 2006 at 10:11

Dr_Evil said:
actually that doesn't work - it will give you the date when the original file/folder was burnt onto the installation Cd.

No it works just fine.

Dr_Evil · 21 Dec 2006 at 11:07

NathanE said:
No it works just fine.

On my machine the "Date Created" for the c:\windows folder is 11 August 2004, 17:02:11. I bought the machine 2 weeks ago...

ultim · 21 Dec 2006 at 12:19

maybe the folder gets created before it gets to the screen where it lets the user to change the time. So it uses the default time its set at.

NathanE · 21 Dec 2006 at 13:15

Dr_Evil said:
On my machine the "Date Created" for the c:\windows folder is 11 August 2004, 17:02:11. I bought the machine 2 weeks ago...

That's because it was installed from a Ghost image or a pre-installation environment (e.g. an OEM provided install disc). If you install Windows fresh then the Created date of the Windows folder will be correct.

James07 · 21 Dec 2006 at 13:20

Pull up the properties of the windows folder and itll tell you when it was created and that will be when windows was installed.

bledd · 21 Dec 2006 at 18:07

Dr_Evil said:
On my machine the "Date Created" for the c:\windows folder is 11 August 2004, 17:02:11. I bought the machine 2 weeks ago...

(its correct, just your machine has been imaged)

NathanE said:
That's because it was installed from a Ghost image or a pre-installation environment (e.g. an OEM provided install disc). If you install Windows fresh then the Created date of the Windows folder will be correct.

yessir