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How To Check Windows Last Boot Up Time

Copyright © Walker 18 Jun 2008 00:44
For those who use a mixture of Windows and Linux system should know that Linux OS has simple command to check system uptime or the last reboot time.
How to do this in Windows system? Are there such simple commands as last reboot or uptime that both available in Linux distributions?
Well, there are some Windows command line utilities to check Windows uptime, last boot up time, last reboot time, whatever you call it. (But, Linux command is much simple and easier for this subject!)

Using Windows command to check system uptime

In NT-based Windows (e.g. Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 2003, etc), just click Start button followed by Run menu to type cmd and press OK to bring up Command Prompt window.

For Windows Vista, click the Vista Orb, type cmd.exe in the Start Search text box (Vista Instant Search), and click the cmd.exe icon in the Program listing will do.
  1. net statistics workstation shows a line “Statistics since” in command output that indicates the Workstation service starting time. By default, this Windows system service started automatically when Windows boots up. It’s not the precise uptime indicator, but the variance is usually less than 60 seconds (at most, probably).
    To simplify the command output, pipe it to the find command, i.e.
    net statistics workstation | find "Statistics since"
  2. systeminfo output is lengthy, but there is a line that exactly showing the last Windows boot up time.
    • In Windows Vista, look for “System Boot Time”.
    • For other non-Vista, NT-based Windows (such as Windows XP), find the “System Up Time” keyword.

    To shorter the systeminfo command output for this subject, use the find command.
    For Windows Vista SP1:
    systeminfo| find "System Boot Time"

    For Windows XP:
    systeminfo| find "System Up Time"
  3. uptime.exe command. Sound familiar right? This Windows version of uptime command is not bundled with Windows, although the command is available for download from Microsoft.com since Windows NT SP 4.
    Update.exe command output in Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 (Though, the update.exe command options are not working correctly in this Vista version):
    C:\Users\Walker\Desktop>uptime.exe
\\WalkerPC has been up for: 0 day(s), 2 hour(s), 3 minute(s), 20 second(s)

If you wonder when is your Windows PC rebooted, pick up one of those options to check it out!


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  3. Brian June 4th, 2009 5:41 AM

    Thank you for the info. Exactly what I was looking for. Ended up creating a two-line batch file to show the time:
    —–
    @echo off
    for /F “usebackq tokens=1,2,*” %%A IN (`net statistics workstation`) do if /%%A%%B == /Statisticssince echo %%C&exit /B 0
    —–

    Other than the issue of 1-digit month and day values (and U.S. format), works like a charm.

  4. Walker June 4th, 2009 7:17 PM

    Thank you for your value-added tip.

  5. Walker June 5th, 2009 12:17 AM

    OK, Brian. I just figure out how your Windows batch file works. To be frank, I posted your comment as it and it doesn’t work.

    However, you do provide me hint for this revised, working batch file:

    echo off
for /F "tokens=1-2,3*" %%i IN ('net statistics workstation') do if "Statistics since"=="%%i %%j" (@echo Windows running since %%k %%l)
  6. Max November 20th, 2009 3:44 PM

    This has been a very helpful page, thank you.

    Is it possible to use the net statistics command, but to find out when a PC was booted on a certain day over the past couple of months? If anyone has any advice (for a non-tech savvy individual), that would be most appreciated.

  7. BA January 7th, 2010 5:52 AM

    @Max: You could search the System event log for standard startup events like “6005: The Event log service was started”.

    Also, a simple way to find the time and date of the last reboot is to check the modified date on the page file (C:\pagefile.sys by default). You need to show system files to see it.