Solved Find original Windows install date (not upgrade date)...

Ghot · May 17, 2023

All the methods to find the original Windows install date... only show the last "upgrade" date.
But the following method will show the original Windows install date, "and" other major dates as well.

Open Powershell as admin and copy/paste all this stuff, then hit ENTER.

$OS=@(Get-ChildItem -Path HKLM:\System\Setup\Source* | ForEach-Object {Get-ItemProperty -Path Registry::$_}; Get-ItemProperty 'HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion')
$OS | Select-Object ProductName, ReleaseID, CurrentBuild, @{Name='InstallDate'; Expression={[timezone]::CurrentTimeZone.ToLocalTime(([datetime]'1/1/1970').AddSeconds($_.InstallDate))}} | Sort-Object "InstallDate"

The above is method #5, here...

https://www.digitalcitizen.life/simple-questions-when-was-windows-installed-my-computer/

Here is my test of this method...

Any way to know when Windows 10 was installed? (not upgraded) - Windows 10 Help Forums

The command "systeminfo | find "Original Install Date" shows the time Windows was last upgraded. Any way to know when Windows 10 was installed? Any help much appreciated.

www.tenforums.com

@Brink

Wisewiz · May 17, 2023

Well, thanks anyway, Ghot. I hadn't found S. Brink's tute on that subject before today.
Just fer the heckuvit, I ran your PS script, and it confirmed (accurately) what I knew to be the case. This old machine got its first OS almost 4 years ago.

Still got a buncha years left in 'er, I think.

And thanks, S. B. You da man.

f14tomcat · May 17, 2023

I wonder why it thinks it's Win 10 Pro. That was a clean install from an ISO from MS.

Ghot · May 17, 2023

f14tomcat said:
I wonder why it thinks it's Win 10 Pro. That was a clean install from an ISO from MS.

View attachment 60340

Because Windows 11 really is just a Windows 10 build...

SIW2 · May 17, 2023

maybe because it is 10.0.2261 ntdll.dll

f14tomcat · May 17, 2023

Ghot said:
Because Windows 11 really is just a Windows 10 build...

View attachment 60345

Not bloody likely.

f14tomcat · May 17, 2023

SIW2 said:
maybe because it is 10.0.2261 ntdll.dll

Appears that's where it is getting it, the base layer version of the NT.

Bree · May 17, 2023

Ghot said:
Once again, it seems that @Brink already has a tutorial for this. LOL
It's Option #1, here...

Not quite, Brink's tutorial lists all previous versions, as your method does. But the date shown against each is the date it was upgraded to the next version. Yours does show the original install date.

My System One has a very long upgrade history dating back to an OEM Windows 7 on a previous PC which then upgraded through every version of W10 up to 19043, at that point I migrated the installed OS to this PC to get offered the W11 upgrade on a supported device.

@Brink's method shows the date my W7 was upgraded to W10 (10240) at the end of July 2015.

Yours shows the actual original install date of my W7, which was the day I did a Factory Reset of the OEM W7 on the old machine in 2014. Likewise it shows W10 (10240) with its July 2015 install date.

The times are interesting too. Seems that your 'InstallDate' is the time the install started, while Brink's 'UpdateTime' is when the install completed. Seems my upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10 took about one and a half hours to complete, starting at 10:17pm and ending at 11:44pm.

Ghot · May 17, 2023

Bree said:
Not quite

Yeah, I just found that out.
Anyway, I saved the DigitalCitizen method in my tweaks folder, for future reference.

I can't get the Windows 10 tutorial method to work at all on Win 11.

Here is the result of the command in post #1 of this topic, on my current Windows 11 installation...

Well, I originally did an IPU from Win 10 to Win 11 Insider around July 2021.
But when the final version of Win 11 came out on Oct 5th 2021... I redid the IPU from Win 10 to Win 11 on Oct 6th 2021.

john1955 · May 17, 2023

. . . Interesting trivia

#2 in the linked article is off by two years for my Windows 7 64 bit install. It's dated July 13, 2009 but I installed from scratch in 2011. A lot of folder have the same 2009 date but the systeminfo | find "Install Date" is the same as the System Volume Information folder and the Recovery folder etc but only the two folders have not been modified since creation.

I'll have to check my Windows 7 32 bit install and see what it says . . .

Bree · May 17, 2023

Ghot said:
I can't get the Windows 10 tutorial method to work at all on Win 11.

It worked fine for me....

Brink · May 17, 2023

Find Windows 10 Original Install Date and Time

How to Find Windows 10 Original Install Date and Time

www.tenforums.com

Ghot · May 17, 2023

Bree said:
It worked fine for me....

View attachment 60349

Ok, I got it to work, but it didn't show the May 2020 clean install date of Windows 10...

It's only showing the IPU from 1909 to 2004 on Win 10, and the IPU from 21H2 to 22H2 on... Windows 10.
It's not showing the clean install on Win 10 in May 2020.

I'm on Win 11 at the moment and I did an IPU from Win 10 to Win 11.
I have no clean install of Win 11.

Both pics... this one and the one in post #9 were run on my Win 11 installation.

Steve C · May 18, 2023

It's interesting there are are more comments on this script here than across at Tenforums

Fabler2 · May 18, 2023

Dev/Canary builds have been busy.

Solved Find original Windows install date (not upgrade date)...

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