Programmatically get last boot/shutdown time

Question

I'd like to get the exact time when windows was shut down and booted. In c++ I'd simply use GetTickCount64 which retrieves the number of milliseconds that have elapsed since the system was started (thus obtaining the time by difference), but I don't know if there is an equivalent function for python and, if possible, I'd like to avoid to write a c++ module.

For last shutdown time I have no idea...maybe there is some log somewhere in windows? I tried to read the event log using win32evtlog library, but it gives me just an event and is about the dns..

edit: Ok, maybe I got a step further: I used win32evtlog, in particular calling ReadEvent log more times it gives me all logs till it returns null. Now, I need a way to understand what ids are about boot/shutdown..

You can access Win32 API calls with the [`pywin32`](http://sourceforge.net/projects/pywin32/) library. Regarding the last shutdown, it seems related to event with id 6006([source](http://www.guidingtech.com/432/last-shutdown-time-windows/)). — Bakuriu, Apr 17 '13 at 15:04

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 17 '13 at 15:12

1

You should use the pywin32 library, and there you'll find the GetTickCount() function.

http://docs.activestate.com/activepython/2.5/pywin32/win32api__GetTickCount_meth.html

Hope this helps.

answered Apr 17 '13 at 15:12

Baltasarq

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What about knowing the last shutdown? – Dhara Apr 17 '13 at 15:15
Well, using the GetTickCount() function is easy... just substract the result of the function call from the current time. – Baltasarq Apr 18 '13 at 08:12
Not really, that would give you the last start-up time; not the last shut-down time – Dhara Apr 18 '13 at 10:47
Yep, that's true, sorry. You can use the same library in order to process the event logs, though. – Baltasarq Apr 18 '13 at 21:30

Stephen Quan · Answer 2 · 2018-10-11T21:50:52.067

Since this is a Windows specific question, we can leverage from both WMI and, even PowerShell. To solve your problem in PowerShell, it's just:

powershell -command "(gcim Win32_OperatingSystem).LastBootUpTime"
# Outputs: Tuesday, 9 October 2018 4:05:58 PM

To do this in Python, we can make use of subprocess:

from subprocess import call
call( ["powershell", "-command", "(gcim Win32_OperatingSystem).LastBootUpTime"] )
# Outputs: Tuesday, 9 October 2018 4:05:58 PM

Programmatically get last boot/shutdown time

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