How To Check Windows Last Boot Up Time

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!