way to tell when last version of XP was installed?

[Stan W.]

is there somewhere to see when XP was installed on a computer?

 

[CZ]

is there somewhere to see when XP was installed on a computer?

Stan:

Run systeminfo (run in a cmd prompt window) on an XP Pro computer:

Or, open Explorer and check the properties of the C:\windows folder

 

[Bill Moyer]

x-no-archive: yes

Or, open Explorer and check the properties of the C:\windows folder

That was going to be my response, but what if it was an upgrade?

 

[CZ]

is there somewhere to see when XP was installed on a computer?

Or, open Explorer and check the properties of the C:\windows folder

That was going to be my response, but what if it was an upgrade?

....but what if it was an upgrade?

Bill:

Open Explorer and check the properties of the \System Volume Information
folder, or some other folder that the previous op system did not have.

Watch this thread as Alex Nichol may post a reply (he has excellent system
knowledge).

 

[Bill Moyer]

x-no-archive: yes

That was going to be my response, but what if it was an upgrade?

...but what if it was an upgrade?

Bill:

Open Explorer and check the properties of the \System Volume
Information folder, or some other folder that the previous op system
did not have.

Watch this thread as Alex Nichol may post a reply (he has excellent
system knowledge).

But if it was a Win2K upgrade, System Volume Information would be
pre-existing as well.

If I still had my Win2K/WinXP upgrade system in place (or if I wasn't
pathologically lazy) I might be able to answer.

 

[CZ]

is there somewhere to see when XP was installed on a computer?

That was going to be my response, but what if it was an upgrade?

...but what if it was an upgrade?

Bill:

Open Explorer and check the properties of the \System Volume
Information folder, or some other folder that the previous op system
did not have.

Watch this thread as Alex Nichol may post a reply (he has excellent
system knowledge).

But if it was a Win2K upgrade, System Volume Information would be
pre-existing as well.

If I still had my Win2K/WinXP upgrade system in place (or if I wasn't
pathologically lazy) I might be able to answer.

Bill:

My Win2k does not have \winnt\prefetch folder (a XP update should have it)

 

[GSV Three Minds in a Can]

But if it was a Win2K upgrade, System Volume Information would be
pre-existing as well.

If it was a Win2k upgrade, then the event logs should (unless they have
rolled around) contain the relevant information. However, in most cases
I find that the date of c:\windows\repair\setup.log will tell you what
you want, or:
C:/WINDOWS/system32/wbem/Logs/setup.log (read it with notepad for the
exact local date/time)

 

[Les Herrman]

is there somewhere to see when XP was installed on a computer?

Open a Command Prompt and enter systeminfo and press return

Gives you a lot of information one line of which is the original
install date.

 

[Alex Nichol]

Open Explorer and check the properties of the \System Volume Information
folder, or some other folder that the previous op system did not have.

Watch this thread as Alex Nichol may post a reply (he has excellent system
knowledge).

Since you ask. .

I don't find it in System Information myself. But get the free Aida 32,
enterprise edition from
http://www.aida32.hu/aida-download.php?bit=32
which is an excellent general System Info tool, and its Operating System
section shows it in the top group. This is the date Setup was last used
to install it, so if a repair reinstall has been done, it indicates the
date of that

If you go to Windows\system32\Config and r-click on system.sav or other
..sav file, take Properties, the Creation date will be that of the
original clean install, regardless of later repair (unless of course
someone has deleted these files in the meantime and later done a repair)

 

[Bill Moyer]

x-no-archive: yes

Since you ask. .

I don't find it in System Information myself.

As someone else pointed out, a very easy way to get it is to go to a cmd
prompt and simply enter the command "systeminfo". An "original install
date" blurb appears near the top (e.g. "Original Install Date: 1/5/2003,
11:14 AM"). I never knew...

 

[CZ]

As someone else pointed out, a very easy way to get it is to go to a cmd
prompt and simply enter the command "systeminfo". An "original install
date" blurb appears near the top (e.g. "Original Install Date: 1/5/2003,
11:14 AM"). I never knew...

Bill:

Note that Pro has the systeminfo cmd, Home does not, though the Pro file
works fine in Home.

 

[Bill Moyer]

x-no-archive: yes

prompt and simply enter the command "systeminfo". An "original
install date" blurb appears near the top (e.g. "Original Install
Date: 1/5/2003, 11:14 AM"). I never knew...

Bill:

Note that Pro has the systeminfo cmd, Home does not, though the Pro
file works fine in Home.

That's friggin retarded. I didn't even check to see if "systeminfo"
worked on both of my systems. It's a million little asinine "gotchas"
like that which make me regret buying a copy of Home instead of Pro on
my secondary system.

 

[Alex Nichol]

As someone else pointed out, a very easy way to get it is to go to a cmd
prompt and simply enter the command "systeminfo". An "original install
date" blurb appears near the top (e.g. "Original Install Date: 1/5/2003,
11:14 AM"). I never knew...

Sorry - but if there has been a repair reinstall, the date that gives is
the date of the repair; not the *original* install which was overwritten
by it. In the case of this machine, where I originally installed when
XP was released in Oct 2001; it gives April 2003 when I did a repair in
order to clean out all updates