Ken Blake wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:

T wrote:

A customer wanted to know how old his computer was. He thought
maybe four years. So I look for when Windows was installed.
It was over sever years. Chuckle.

When was Windows installed:

systeminfo | find /i "original"

Only works if you never give up resolving a problem that a fresh OS
install will fix quicker.

...or if you never do a clean installation of a different version of
Windows.

I never upgrade (which is really a migrate) to a new Windows version.
During the installation, I elect to have the installer wipe the old OS
partition, or I do the wipe if Microsoft's installer won't do what I
want for partitioning (like using 1 partition instead of 2, as the
installer will not step on current partitioning and use the 1
partition). Beforehand, I've already done an image backup of the OS
partition, stored all my data files elsewhere, and often wander through
the programs checking for any tweaks or config changes that I've made.
I've found upgrades are polluted with unrelated old crap (not usable
under the new OS) or the old state inflicts problems in the new OS.

Although I did the Windows 10 upgrade (only to get the image and the
product key recorded into my Microsoft account), and if and when I move
to Windows 10, it will also be a fresh install. I did the upgrade and
saved that image so I could start from there when going to Windows 10.
Or I could use the installer (for the latest release) and have it get
the product key from my Microsoft account to do a fresh install (the
more likely scenario).

Fresh installs take longer than upgrades unless, of course, there were
problems or pollution in the old OS that migrate to the new OS. Usually
takes me an evening to do the fresh OS install and several following
evenings to install fresh copies of the applications and do their
tweaking. The data is trivial to restore.