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Calculating Uptime on Windows XP

Kelemvor

Lifer
OK,

Not sure what the difference is here but I have some conflicting information.

We troubleshooting some people's PCs, we sometimes bring up Task manager and turn on the CPU Time column. We can then look at the System Idle Time entry to get a feel for how long it's been since someone has rebooted. We know if it's been a few hundred hours, it's time for a reboot.

However I've talked to people who have installed software upgrades that have needed to reboot and that didn't reset the timer for some reason. Their CPU Time might say 300 hours when they just rebooted 2 days ago to install some new software. We have some software at work that does a slew of updates at once and will normally reboot 5-8 times but then it still tells them they've been up for days...

I also go to the command prompt and type SYSTEMINFO and look at the actual System Up Time entry to get the real information since the Task manager data doesn't always seem correct.

Anyone know for sure what the Task manager data really is and why it doesn't always reset and if the Systeminfo information is really 100% accurate?
 
We troubleshooting some people's PCs, we sometimes bring up Task manager and turn on the CPU Time column. We can then look at the System Idle Time entry to get a feel for how long it's been since someone has rebooted. We know if it's been a few hundred hours, it's time for a reboot.

All of those assumptions are wrong. System Idle only increments when the CPU is idle so it'll have less time on it the busier the machine is. And there's nothing about the amount of uptime that indicated whether a reboot is needed or not.

However I've talked to people who have installed software upgrades that have needed to reboot and that didn't reset the timer for some reason. Their CPU Time might say 300 hours when they just rebooted 2 days ago to install some new software.

That's impossible, all process accounting is lost on reboot just like everything else in memory.
 
I agree it's not supposed to work that way but I've seen it myself.

So anyway, is the "Systeminfo" information the easiest way to verify when the last time is a machine was rebooted or is there any other way?
 
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