Here we have some extremely useful methods to find out the exact date and time of Windows installation for both – an individual person and a tech guy because there might be a situation, when you seriously wanted or needed to know your computer’s Windows installation date and time.
Well, with the help of some simple methods, you can easily know the “Original Install Date” of an operating system installation.
There are 4 different methods available that can show you when the operating system was last installed on your machine (desktop/laptop).
Find Out the Exact Windows Installation Date
You can try any of the below method or all to determine the accurate Windows installation date and time (OS Install date ).
METHOD 1: Find Windows Installation Date Using Windows Folder
This method is the easiest one, you can easily find out when Windows operating systems was installed.
Also see: Disable Use of USB Ports in Windows Computer.
First go to the drive on which Windows OS is installed (most likely it is C) and right click on Windows folder, and select Properties. Now see the Credited: entry under General tab.
Remember: The above method will show the date when the Windows was installed on your computer instead of showing the date of an upgraded version of Windows (ex- upgraded from Windows 8 to 8.1 version).
METHOD 2: Find Windows Installation Date Using Systeminfo Tool
This is the most preferred method to find out the exact Windows installation date and time via Systeminfo tool.
To find the Windows installation date, use the Systeminfo built-in tool. Run the Command Prompt (CMD) as administrator, then type the below command and hit Enter.
systeminfo | find /i "Original Install Date"
METHOD 3: Search OS Install Date & Time Using WMIC Command
This is another command trick “WMIC” – Windows Management Instrumentation Command-line. The WMIC command can be also used to find out Windows Installation date and time.
To search Windows Install date, Press Win Key + R to open Run box and type the following command:
WMIC OS GET installdate
This command will instantly show you the exact install date and time of Windows in the format: Year Month Date Hour Minutes Seconds
When we hit the above command on our computer, we got the following numbers:
20140426215552.000000+330
Just ignore the numbers after first . (dot)
This means: 2014(year) 04(month) 26(date) 21(hour) 55(minutes) 52(seconds) is the original install date of Windows.
METHOD 4: Find Windows Installation Date Using Windows Registry
You can also find the Windows OS installation date using Windows Registry. At the time of Windows installation, the OS automatically creates a DWORD (32-bit) Value key that can be used to determine the Windows installation time.
The Windows registry displays the Windows install date in seconds since 1st of January, 1970.
Navigate to the following registry location:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows NTCurrentVersionInstallDate
Yes, I know this method is little-bit complicated to check the OS installation date, but you may need it just in-case.
My Windows was installed 1410920371 since 1st of January, 1970. You need to be little expert in mathematics to figure out the exact date.
Well, here I have shared the various methods to find out Windows installation date and time. If you know any other trick to search the OS installation date, please share with us via comment below.