Why does Win32_Product.InstallDate2 always return

Question

UPDATE: If you want to help test this quickly in your locale. Launch PowerShell (hold down the Windows key, tap R, release the Windows key, type in "powershell" and press OK) and run this command - (is the InstallDate2 column empty? Please let us know what you see.):

Get-WmiObject Win32_Product | Format-Table -Property InstallDate, InstallDate2, Name

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I should start by saying that this issue is not critical for me (yet), but I am baffled. I am accessing the WMI object Win32_Product, and there are two properties related to dates: InstallDate and InstallDate2 respectively.

• InstallDate seems to be a string representation of a DateTime value without the time part. Sort of a cut-off UTC format. Example: 20170819. The field is a string value, and not a DateTime format.
• InstallDate2 is supposed to be in real DateTime format, but it is consistently null for all Win32_Product items on all my systems (Windows 7, Windows 10, various editions).

Using WMIExplorer.exe I see this description of InstallDate: "...the InstallDate property has been deprecated in favor of the InstallDate2 property which is of type DateTime rather than String. New implementations should use the InstallDate2 property."

As stated I get null back on all my machines, so I was assuming that InstallDate2 was simply not implemented properly, but then I found this article: Working with Software Installations. This article clearly shows InstallDate2 returning a WMI DateTime (with missing time part?): InstallDate2 = 20060506000000.000000-000.

I am simply wondering what can be causing this InstallDate2 null value on all my systems when I see it working on other systems? Some possibilities that has crossed my mind (one more far fetched than the next perhaps):

• OS issue? I don't have access to older OSs, but I see null on several different editions (home, ulitmate, etc...) of Windows 7 and Windows 10 systems. Perhaps it worked on XP and older? I find this unlikely.
• Locale issue? I am in a Norwegian locale. Could this affect things? I tried briefly to change the locale on a Windows 10 system, but it had some language pack issues and the result was the same.
• Domain (network) issue? Is it conceivable that machines in workgroups work differently than machines that are part of a domain?
• Patch level? Could a recent Windows Update have changed something in WMI?
• What else could conceivably affect this?

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And a second part of the question (in addition to what the cause of the null value for InstallDate2 is). The string I get back for InstallDate (the string format date): 20170819. I am assuming this is just a chopped of version of Universal Time Coordinate (UTC) format. And that it is a locale-independent format? It seems like it when I read about CIM_DATETIME.

I tried filling the rest of the chopped off date string with zeros and passing it to a SWbemDateTime scripting object, and it seemed to work, but that really smells as a "solution". Doesn't seem reliable at all:

Set dateTime = CreateObject("WbemScripting.SWbemDateTime")
dateTime.Value = "20170601000000.000000+000"
MsgBox dateTime.Year
MsgBox dateTime.UTC

It shows 2017 for year, and 0 for UTC. With such a "solution" I obviously really want to get the InstallDate2 DateTime field working correctly so I get a proper Datetime back.

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So in all its verbosity, basically a two-part question:

1. What could be causing Win32_Product.InstallDate2 to consistently report null seemingly only on my systems?
2. The short string returned by InstallDate - is this in a locale-independent format?
   • Since I am in a Norwegian locale and see what looks like an English style format, it would seem that it is? Since the field is just a string, the content could basically be "anything" though.
   • It would be great if someone in another locale could verify that the format returns as: Win32_Product.InstallDate = yyyymmdd.
   • Reading about CIM_DATETIME seems to indicate the string is locale-independent (even if chopped off).

If you want to test, the quickest way is probably using wbemtest.exe (or better yet PowerShell if you have it available on your box - as mentioned by JosefZ in the comment below):

• Launch wbemtest.exe (Hold down the Windows key, tap R, release the Windows key, type in "wbemtest.exe" and press OK).
• Click "connect" and then OK (namespace defaults to root\cimv2), and click "connect" again.
• Click "Query" and type in this WQL command: SELECT Name,InstallDate2 FROM Win32_Product and click "Use" (or equivalent).
• Double click any entry returned, and check InstallDate2 in the middle list box (scroll down).

Answer 1

In my opinion you won't get a full date-time back. The only information available is effectively from MsiGetProductInfo (...INSTALLPROPERTY_INSTALLDATE....). This format is YYYYMMDD. You're only ever going to get the data because that seems to all there is. Note that the documentation for INSTALLPROPERTY_INSTALLDATE says that it is the installation date only if there has been no other servicing since the product was installed, so it appears that you can't even rely on it being the date the product was installed.

See Detecting the time when the program was installed

I suspect the best way to get the time the product was installed is to get the local package path with MsiGetProductInfo (Ex) ...INSTALLPROPERTY_LOCALPACKAGE... and get the cached MSI's CreationDate.