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What is the simplest way to find out how long a computer is turned on Windows?

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12 Answers 12

Reset to default
62
  • Run command line
  • Type Systeminfo

  • Find "System Boot Time"

    Days: 10 Hours: 10 Minutes: 10 Seconds: 10

For shorter result you can use:

systeminfo | find "Boot Time"
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11
  • 9
    >systeminfo | find "Boot Time"
    – svandragt
    Jul 23, 2009 at 9:18
  • 2
    for me the simplest way now is > systeminfo | find "Up Time"
    – Juozas Kontvainis
    Jul 23, 2009 at 9:29
  • 4
    Doesn't work on Vista (use already included uptime.exe instead).
    – mwore
    Jul 23, 2009 at 12:50
  • 3
    Also note you can use this to query a remote machine as systeminfo /S *machinename*` | find "Up Time"`
    – GAThrawn
    Oct 14, 2009 at 10:41
  • 4
    On Windows 7, it shows "System Boot Time" but not "System Up Time".
    – Keith Thompson
    Dec 28, 2011 at 22:20
15

there is great command line tool from Microsoft uptime.exe:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=BC18FFDB-D6FE-400B-B892-94783AE44C91&displaylang=en

good thing with this tool is it works really fast.

Uptime [server] [/s ] [/a] [/d:mm/dd/yyyy | /p:n] [/heartbeat] [/? | /help]
server Name or IP address of remote server to process.
/s Display key system events and statistics.
/a Display application failure events (assumes /s).
/d: Only calculate for events after mm/dd/yyyy.
/p: Only calculate for events in the previous n days.
/heartbeat Turn on/off the system's heartbeat
/? Basic usage.
/help Additional usage information.

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2
12

Open the command prompt and type:

net stats srv | find "Statistics"

Example output:

>net stats srv | find "Statistics"
Server Statistics for \\4IFS-SANDER
Statistics since 22/07/2009 10:14:14

Source (MS KB).

Edit: Actually this will tell you the date and time when the pc was up from, not the duration.

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5
  • I'm not sure if this info is correct now, when I use MicTech's and KovBal's solution I get this: >systeminfo | find "Boot Time" System Boot Time: 23/07/2009, 02:22:27
    – svandragt
    Jul 23, 2009 at 9:17
  • On Vista it returns "Statistics since 1.1.1980 00:00:00" (use already included uptime.exe instead)
    – mwore
    Jul 23, 2009 at 12:52
  • Returns bogus information just like systeminfo. It's returning a time that I know for a fact the machine last restarted. But then later that night it was turned off and turned back on this morning. Yet it's returning the last restarted time. 5 bucks says a month from now it'll report the uptime is a month long. Lots of machines on my network show many months of uptime which is all bogus. They're shut off at the end of the day.
    – Justin Emlay
    Dec 13, 2018 at 22:45
  • @JustinEmlay are your machines sleeping, hibernated, or shut down? What version of Windows are you using?
    – mwfearnley
    Jul 2, 2019 at 7:46
  • Windows 10 LTSC 2019. I found the issue. Windows 10 no longer shuts down nor restarts properly. By design. It uses some funky hybrid sleep mode. This also makes it so Windows doesn't properly reset "pending reboot" states. The option to turn it off was in Power Plan Options for one quick version of Windows 10 but then they removed it. Only way to turn it off is through registry. Anyway, this is why so many people are having issues. Local Machine - SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Power - HiberbootEnabled - 0
    – Justin Emlay
    Jul 2, 2019 at 16:16
8

On Windows 7 / Windows Server 2008 and above, this information is displayed in task manager under the "Performance tab".

This can be quicker then using the command line and works in cases where you might have WMI issues preventing you from running systeminfo.

where to find uptiem

If you need to find this remotely, you could also run

systeminfo /s SERVERNAME | find "Time:"

from the command line.

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7
  • On Windows 7 / SP1 and 2008 / R2, yes. Not on higher level OS (8, 8.1, 10)
    – BlueCompute
    Mar 10, 2016 at 11:18
  • 1
    I have just tested Windows 8.1 (Pro), 2012 and 2016 - what I had to hand. It is there on all three. You have to click "More details", and look on the Performance tab.
    – mwfearnley
    Jun 1, 2017 at 7:47
  • And click on the CPU within the performance tab. Just bitten by this :-)
    – Cameron
    Oct 19, 2017 at 14:35
  • Bogus information. I turned my machine on this morning yet it says my Up Time is over 13 days.
    – Justin Emlay
    Dec 13, 2018 at 22:47
  • @BlueCompute it's always there in the "Performance" tab in Windows 8, 8.1 and 10
    – phuclv
    Jun 10, 2021 at 4:24
6

Following command gives last reboot time for a remote system:

systeminfo /s server_name | find "System Boot Time"
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4

Yet another way:

C:\>wmic path Win32_OperatingSystem get LastBootUpTime
LastBootUpTime
20200908203723.500000+120
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4

In windows 10, this is located in Task manager > Expand More Details Chevron > Performance > CPU > At the bottom, Up time.

enter image description here

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3

If you have the Windows Server 2000 or 2003 resource kits try

srvinfo -ns [\\\server] | Findstr "Time"

Note: Srvinfo.exe will not run on a 64-bit versions of Windows, due to it being 16-bit.

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3

Using SYSTEMINFO with PowerShell

For those who like using PowerShell, you can use the answer(s) above and wrap systeminfo in a PowerShell function to get a DateTime result for when the server last booted:

function Get-ComputerBootTime {
  param($ComputerName = (hostname))

  $SystemInfo = & systeminfo /s $ComputerName | Select-String "System Boot Time")
  if($SystemInfo -match "[\d/]+,\s+\S+"){
    return (Get-Date $matches[0])
  }
}

And then call the function, for example:

[PS]> $BootTime = Get-ComputerUptime -ComputerName MYSERVER

To get the Uptime for the server, you compare with the current time:

[PS]> $UpTime = (Get-Date) - $BootTime

This is a TimeSpan, which includes properties such as TotalDays:

[PS]> $UpTime.TotalDays
14.1827364
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1
  • don't use systeminfo. It's extremely slow. Use Get-CimInstance -ClassName win32_operatingsystem | select csname, lastbootuptime or Get-WmiObject win32_operatingsystem | select csname, @{LABEL='LastBootUpTime';EXPRESSION={$_.ConverttoDateTime($_.lastbootuptime)}} instead
    – phuclv
    Jun 10, 2021 at 4:30
2

Sometimes the uptime is dificult and user is not logged out and the two prety much coincide so I use this command to display the LOGON TIME

query USER

or shorter even:

quser

which prints something like:

C:\Users\eflorinescu>query  USER
 USERNAME                 SESSIONNAME        ID  STATE   IDLE TIME  LOGON TIME
>eflorinescu              console             2  Active    2+23:44  5/7/2018 8:25 AM

also even better using PowerShell

Get-ComputerInfo | select-object oslastbootuptime
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3
  • 1
    This is when the user logged into the PC which is really different than how long the PC has been on
    – gregg
    Jun 9, 2021 at 16:52
  • @gregg yes you are right but is a quick check if you are never logged out the times are pretty similar, added also the correct PowerShell command
    – Eduard Florinescu
    Jun 9, 2021 at 20:46
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    Thanks, while this isn't exactly what was asked, query user is perfectly what I need! Cause I always log in instantly after powering on and I want to know this time. All the other solutions returns the real system boot up time which is (currently) a month ago, due to fast boot - I am not interested in that.
    – Nicolas
    Jul 11 at 14:06
1

Anyone wanting the unix time (seconds since the epoch) that are using cygwin can try this:

date +%s -d "$(wmic path Win32_OperatingSystem get LastBootUpTime | grep -E '^[0-9]' | awk '{print substr($1,1,4) "-" substr($1,5,2) "-" substr($1,7,2) " " substr($1,9,2) ":" substr($1,11,2) ":" substr($1,13,2);}')"
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1

In PowerShell either of the following commands will work

Get-WmiObject win32_operatingsystem |% {$_.ConverttoDateTime($_.lastbootuptime)}
(Get-CimInstance -ClassName win32_operatingsystem).lastbootuptime

Get-CimInstance is both shorter and more future proof, because Get-WmiObject and wmic have been both deprecated

You can also run (Get-WmiObject win32_operatingsystem).lastbootuptime but the output is less readable because it's a raw time string

See PowerTip: Get the Last Boot Time with PowerShell

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