How to Find Windows Installation Date and Time

systeminfo - windows install date and time

You may sometimes think of reinstalling Windows, especially when its performance goes down after a few years due to several different factors. And, you may like to know the date and time of your current Windows installation.

This post shows you the different methods using which you can determine the original installation date and time of your Windows installation. The information applies to all versions of Windows, including Windows 10.

Note that in Windows 10, the following methods show the installation date of the most recent feature update you installed, and not the install date and time of your 1st Windows 10 build.

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How to Change Win + E Shortcut Target in Windows 10/11

The WinKey + E keystroke, as well as the File Explorer shortcut on the taskbar, open Quick access view by default. You can change the default folder to This PC using Folder Options General tab, or make it open to the Downloads folder using a registry method.

But, how to make Windows 10’s File Explorer default to a custom folder or the Libraries section?

The user interface provides no option to set a custom destination for WinKey + E keystroke or the File Explorer pinned taskbar item. As you may have noticed, the File Explorer Pinned taskbar shortcut target can’t be modified via Properties, as it’s a special shortcut with the Target field grayed out or read-only.

File Explorer shortcut

However, you change the WinKey + E or the File Explorer shortcut target using a registry edit without breaking any other setting.Read more

How to Create Automatic System Restore Points Daily in Windows 10/11

system restore list of restore points in windows 11 - 24 hrs frequency

This post tells you how to schedule the creation of daily System Restore point during startup or logon in all versions of Windows, including Windows 10 and Windows 11.

The first method involves a VBScript that I wrote to create restore points, and the 2nd method uses the WMI command-line tool Wmic.exe. The script method has an advantage where you can force the creation of restore point even if a previous restore point was created within the last 24 hours.Read more

How to Disable Full Row Select and Auto Arrange in Windows 10?

The magical registry edits that I provided several years back to disable auto-arrange and full row select features in Windows 7, also work fine in Windows 10 just as they did in Windows 7. For a detailed explanation about the registry edits (fflags values), check out my earlier posts How to Disable Full Row Select in Explorer in Windows 7? and How to Disable Auto Arrange in Folders in Windows 7?. The registry edit in the latter article is even better, as it disables Auto Arrange in addition.

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