How to track the accurate windows startup time using C++(win32/MFC) - c++

Question

I am creating an application which track the System startup time.
I tried GetTickcount() method and WMI query.In both cases I got the same solution.
But the time that I obtained is different from actual startup time.
By researching I found that because of fast startup option enabled in power option the system is not going for boot when we shutdown it.
Thing that I needed is time actual startup time.How can we get the actual startup time using C++?
I shut downed the system and turned ON it on 24-Jun-20, 8:22:05 AM but boot time that I got is 22-Jun-20, 5:11:05 PM

Answer 1

When the fast startup option enabled, click start menu -> shutdown will put the machine into sleep mode/hibernation instead of shutdown. But restart menu isn't affected. (And shutting down from command line isn't affected too as my test). So, boot time will not be reset.
You could try the following methods:
Turn off the "fast startup" option.
Add a task to the task schedule to log the time when the system start.
Read the Windows Event Log:
Event ID 27 records the kernel boot events. As you can see in the picture, boot type 0x1 means it was a fast startup. You could just read the newest one and get the create time.
Sample(Refer to this sample document: Querying for Events):
#include <windows.h>
#include <sddl.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <winevt.h>
#pragma comment(lib, "wevtapi.lib")
#define ARRAY_SIZE 1
#define TIMEOUT 1000 // 1 second; Set and use in place of INFINITE in EvtNext call
DWORD PrintResults(EVT_HANDLE hResults);
DWORD PrintEvent(EVT_HANDLE hEvent); // Shown in the Rendering Events topic
void main(void)
{
DWORD status = ERROR_SUCCESS;
EVT_HANDLE hResults = NULL;
LPCWSTR pwsPath = L"System";
LPCWSTR pwsQuery = L"Event/System[EventID=27]";
hResults = EvtQuery(NULL, pwsPath, pwsQuery, EvtQueryChannelPath | EvtQueryReverseDirection);
if (NULL == hResults)
{
status = GetLastError();
if (ERROR_EVT_CHANNEL_NOT_FOUND == status)
wprintf(L"The channel was not found.\n");
else if (ERROR_EVT_INVALID_QUERY == status)
// You can call the EvtGetExtendedStatus function to try to get
// additional information as to what is wrong with the query.
wprintf(L"The query is not valid.\n");
else
wprintf(L"EvtQuery failed with %lu.\n", status);
goto cleanup;
}
PrintResults(hResults);
cleanup:
if (hResults)
EvtClose(hResults);
}
// Enumerate all the events in the result set.
DWORD PrintResults(EVT_HANDLE hResults)
{
DWORD status = ERROR_SUCCESS;
EVT_HANDLE hEvents[ARRAY_SIZE];
DWORD dwReturned = 0;
// Get a block of events from the result set.
if (!EvtNext(hResults, ARRAY_SIZE, hEvents, INFINITE, 0, &dwReturned))
{
if (ERROR_NO_MORE_ITEMS != (status = GetLastError()))
{
wprintf(L"EvtNext failed with %lu\n", status);
}
goto cleanup;
}
// For each event, call the PrintEvent function which renders the
// event for display. PrintEvent is shown in RenderingEvents.
/*for (DWORD i = 0; i < dwReturned; i++)
{
if (ERROR_SUCCESS == (status = PrintEvent(hEvents[i])))
{
EvtClose(hEvents[i]);
hEvents[i] = NULL;
}
else
{
goto cleanup;
}
}*/
if (ERROR_SUCCESS == (status = PrintEvent(hEvents[0])))
{
EvtClose(hEvents[0]);
hEvents[0] = NULL;
}
else
{
goto cleanup;
}
cleanup:
for (DWORD i = 0; i < dwReturned; i++)
{
if (NULL != hEvents[i])
EvtClose(hEvents[i]);
}
return status;
}
DWORD PrintEvent(EVT_HANDLE hEvent)
{
DWORD status = ERROR_SUCCESS;
DWORD dwBufferSize = 0;
DWORD dwBufferUsed = 0;
DWORD dwPropertyCount = 0;
LPWSTR pRenderedContent = NULL;
if (!EvtRender(NULL, hEvent, EvtRenderEventXml, dwBufferSize, pRenderedContent, &dwBufferUsed, &dwPropertyCount))
{
if (ERROR_INSUFFICIENT_BUFFER == (status = GetLastError()))
{
dwBufferSize = dwBufferUsed;
pRenderedContent = (LPWSTR)malloc(dwBufferSize);
if (pRenderedContent)
{
EvtRender(NULL, hEvent, EvtRenderEventXml, dwBufferSize, pRenderedContent, &dwBufferUsed, &dwPropertyCount);
}
else
{
wprintf(L"malloc failed\n");
status = ERROR_OUTOFMEMORY;
goto cleanup;
}
}
if (ERROR_SUCCESS != (status = GetLastError()))
{
wprintf(L"EvtRender failed with %d\n", status);
goto cleanup;
}
}
wprintf(L"%s\n\n", pRenderedContent);
cleanup:
if (pRenderedContent)
free(pRenderedContent);
return status;
}
Result: