When windows was installed. How to find out the date and time when Windows was installed

Hello dear blog readers website. Today I want to tell you how you can find out the date Windows installations.

Why is this necessary? Let's say you buy new computer or a laptop from an advertisement, from friends, or they bring it to you from abroad. Without documents, you can check whether it is really new by looking at when the OS was installed. Although this will only make sense if the seller did not reinstall the system.

You may also need to find out the installation date of Windows if you periodically reinstall the system to clean it. Therefore, in order not to remember or write down the last time you reinstalled, you just need to look at this information on the computer itself.

And finally, you may be driven by ordinary curiosity.

And so, let's look at several ways to find out the code the system was installed:

Through folder properties

For each folder, you can see the time it was created. Therefore, using this opportunity, you can see when the Windows directory was created, and this, in turn, will be the time of installation of the system. For this:

1. Open Explorer and go to the drive where the OS is installed. This is usually drive C.
2. Find Windows folder, click on it right click mouse and select Properties in the context menu.
3. The system properties window will open, in which you can see when the OS was created.

There is one drawback to this method. The point is that, starting from Windows Vista, Microsoft has changed the system installation method and now during installation the files are extracted from the image installation disk. Those. the Windows directory properties window will show not the date and time of OS installation, but when the image for the installation disk was created.

What should users of Vista and more do? later versions? There is a way out. The fact is that the creation time can be viewed for any folder on the computer. Those. you need to find directories that were not created by extracting the installation disk from the image, but were created in the usual way during OS installation or immediately after its completion. You can find many such folders, but the most simple example there will be a directory account the user created during installation (provided it was not deleted). It is located on drive C in the Users folder.

Right-click on the user's folder and select Properties and look at when it was created. IN in this example is a user named user. There may be several folders on your computer different users. See which one is the oldest.

Using the SystemInfo command

The method described above does not allow you to accurately determine the installation date, and may also cause some difficulties if you have a system installed that is later than XP.

But there is more exact way find out the Windows installation date using the command SystemInfo:

1. Now enter SystemInfo and press Enter key. After executing the command, a list with information about your system will be displayed on the screen.
2. Scroll up this list and find the item " installation date" This will be the date and time of OS installation.

So as not to search in the list the desired line, you can run SystemInfo with the following parameters:

SystemInfo | find /i "date"

As a result of executing the command, lines containing the word “date” will be found. In our case, one line will be found “ installation date", which is what we need.

Using the WMIC command

There is another command that can be used to determine when the system was installed: WMIC (Windows Management Instrumentation Command-line).

1. Run Command Prompt as Administrator.
2. Enter WMIC with the following parameters:

WMIC OS GET installdate

As a result of executing the command, the required data will be displayed in the format: YearMonthDateHoursMinutesSeconds

In our example: 2013 is the year, 10 is the month, 17 is the day, 07 is the hour, 36 is the minute, 46 is the second.

Using Registry Editor

This method is somewhat more complicated than the previous ones, but, as they say, we are not looking for easy ways, so we will consider it too:

1. Launch the “Run” window (Windows key combination + R), then enter regedit and press the Enter key.

2. After launching the Registry Editor window, go to the following section in the folder tree on the left:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion

3. On the right side of the window you need to find a parameter called “ InstallDate”

4. This parameter contains the number of seconds that have passed from January 1, 1970 to the date the system was installed. So if you want, you can take a little time and find out necessary information. But I think this makes no sense, and this method is described only for general development.

That's all. Now, I think you can easily find out the Windows installation date by choosing the best method for yourself.

In today's article, I will tell you where you can get information about the installation date of Windows on your PC. I'll show you how to look this information using our own Windows tools, where it can be found in third-party applications or programs.

Why is information about when Windows was installed even useful? Well, of course, each user can pursue their own goal for this, but most often this goal is ordinary curiosity.

Also, some system administrators thus, when performing computer maintenance, determine whether Windows was installed long ago and it’s time to reinstall it or not. In general, I think that everyone will determine for themselves why they might need it. Well, we will proceed directly to performing the necessary actions that will help us find out the installation date.

Find out the Windows installation date using the system's own tools

I won't describe everything here possible options, in which you will have to calculate something yourself or look for the necessary information in an unclear place. Instead, three of the most, as it seems to me, will be considered simple options, who can give a comprehensive answer to the question about the date of installation of Windows.

Method No. 1

Of course, the most the easy way Determining the Windows installation date is easiest using the command line. Accordingly, first we need to launch it using dialog box“Run” by entering the “cmd” command there or launching it through the “Start” menu, and also, if you are using Windows 10, you can launch it from the context menu by right-clicking on the “Start” icon.

Now, as for running as administrator, I was able to get all the information I was interested in about installing the system by running “cmd” in normal mode so that you can try this first, and then, if necessary, run it with suspended rights.

In the command line window that loads, type or copy this: “ systeminfo", confirming the execution by pressing "Enter".

After a few seconds of collecting information, information about your system should appear on the screen, including the date of its installation. For example, I have this: “ 09.12.2016 ", usually given line is on the tenth line, or somewhere in this area.

If you want to get confused and want only date information to be displayed on the screen, then you will have to do the following command:systeminfo | find "Date of installation" .

After which only one line will appear below, in which the phrase “installation date” was mentioned, and the number displayed with right side, opposite this line is the very date of installation of the system.

Method No. 2

This method is probably even simpler than the previous one, but it is number two because there may be an error of several minutes or seconds in the date it displays, it may not even be, but most likely it is, but still probably easier way can not found.

So, let's go to " My computer» — « Disk C:» — « Users" Here we find the folder with your user and calling it “ Properties».

In the " Are common", find the line " Created", opposite which the date and time of its creation will be indicated. That is, this is the creation date of the user folder itself, but usually given value matches or is close to the system installation date.

Let's look at my example, based on the data received in systeminfo, we can say that Windows was installed on 12/09/2016 21:09:47, but the folder was created on 12/09/2016 21:09:52. As you can see, the difference is literally 5 seconds.

In general, although there is an error, it is not at all large, so that I think we can safely rely on the data obtained in this way.

Method No. 3

The third option is to use a third-party program. In principle, today information on the system installation date can be viewed in any utility or program that can display information about the system or computer characteristics.

But, since I most often use Aida64, I will show an example of where to look for the necessary installation information, using this tool.

After downloading the program, install it and launch it. In the Aida64 interface window, using navigation menu, select the item “ operating system " Afterwards, in the information window, which is located on the right side, all information about the installed OS will be displayed, as well as exact date when Windows was installed.

True, you can only find out the date, so if you need a specific time in addition to the date, then I recommend paying attention to one of the methods described above.

I think this will be enough to find out information about when Windows was installed on your computer. If you have any ideas or questions regarding this article, then leave them in the comments, and I will definitely answer them.

Hello friends. How to find out when Windows was installed? We may need such information when, for example, we are weighing the options - tinkering with finding a solution to a problem or reinstalling Windows just to be sure. The choice of the latter option can be facilitated by the old installation date of the system. Another example is when we buy a PC, laptop or tablet on the secondary market, and the seller swears to us that the device is new or has low mileage. If suddenly the Windows installation date indicates a much higher mileage than stated, with skillful bargaining this fact can be used to reduce the price. How can you find out this information?

1. AIDA64

The well-known AIDA64 program is a Must Have tool if we go to look at a used computer. It should be one of the first programs on board a Live disk recorded on a flash drive, which we must have with us in such situations. Installation date and time Windows program shows in the “Operating system” section, in the “Working time” subsection, this is the “First boot time” parameter.

In addition, AIDA64 in the same subsection will show us other interesting things about an unfamiliar device:

Total operating and downtime,

The most for a long time work and downtime,

Number of reboots, etc.

2.Speccy

The Speccy program from Piriform (the parent of CCleaner) is consumer-grade software, but nevertheless it is a very good diagnostic program. It displays information about components, shows the temperature of individual components, and provides the ability to record diagnostics. specific device in snapshot files. In its “Operating System” section we will see the date and time of installation of Windows.

How longer computer works on the operating system without reinstallation, the more problems arise and the performance decreases more. Right after Windows reinstallation and installations necessary drivers all system actions on the computer are performed almost instantly. However, once you work on it for several months, the startup speed decreases system utilities, opening folders and other problems arise. You can increase the speed of your computer by optimizing the system, but it is much more effective to simply reinstall Windows, especially if the operating system was installed a long time ago. In this article, we will look at ways to find out when Windows was installed on a computer.

How to find out the Windows installation date using system tools

To find out the installation date operating system it is not necessary to install additional software on your computer software. Required information can be obtained built-in using Windows. There are at least two ways to do this:

There are other ways to find out when Windows was installed using system tools. But the two methods described above are the simplest and most convenient. The command line option can be executed, among other things, without loading the operating system directly from the diagnostic environment. This may be useful if Windows does not start for one reason or another.

How to find out the installation date of Windows by third-party applications

Eat whole line third party programs, which can help determine the date Windows was installed on your computer. Similar functionality is included in many third-party diagnostic programs Oh. Let's look at the most popular of them:

As with the built-in Windows tools described above third party applications are not the only ones that allow you to find out the installation date of the operating system. There are also a number of other diagnostic programs that can cope with this task.

You may need to look at the Windows installation date when buying or selling a computer, or just out of idle curiosity. Knowing the installation date of the operating system, you can determine whether the seller is deceiving you, claiming that “this is a fresh Windows, I just installed it yesterday!”

I suggest two reliable way in order to find out the installation date of Windows XP and Windows 7. This process is the same on both OSes. Therefore, I will not attribute this article to any specific system.

The whole process is very simple and takes a couple of minutes.

Via command line

Before you can find out the Windows installation date, you need to run the command line. This is done by clicking on the “Start” button and then “Run”. Or you can use the combination Win+R. In the window that opens, write cmd and click “OK”.

will appear command line. In it, in order to find out the installation date of Windows 7 or XP, you need to write systeminfo after the welcome messages and press the “Enter” key. It may take some time for the request to be processed, and then you will see information about your computer.

In this list you need to find the line “Install date:”, and there you will see when Windows was installed for you: the day and time of installation. There is also a lot of other interesting information here.

Via the registry

The Windows registry is the holy of holies of the operating system. Everything is here, including the installation date of Windows.

Yes, this method of looking at the installation date of Windows is, of course, sophisticated and complicated, but still, it’s a method! And this, so to speak, is the primary source of information. This method Find out the installation date Windows is also suitable for XP and Seven.

Thinking about how to find out the Windows installation date, you may be struck by the idea that you can look at the properties of the Windows directory and the creation date will contain what we are looking for. Yes, this method is simpler and it does work, but you can’t really rely on it. Sometimes the date here may not correspond to the actual installation. For example, on my computer the difference is about a day.

There are also many more third party software who provide such information, they receive it from the registry.