how to know windows process start time

While you are debugging an issue with a windows process(written in .NET,C++, etc) in Production environment, you may want to know how long the process is running.

You can get to know process start time by looking into the process dump using WinDBG tools. But that is a very complicated process for this one simple bit of information. There is an easy way to get to know the process start time using the Windows Sysinternals tool called Process Explorer.

Steps to know process start time using Process Explorer

1. First download the process explorer from Microsoft Sysinternals website. You can follow this google search link to download the Process Explorer.
2. Once you unzip the Process Explorer ZIP file, click the "procexp64.exe" on 64 bit machine. If not use "procexp.exe" on 32 bit machines.

3. Upon launching Process Explorer, you can see the list of process running on your system.
4. Now in the Process Explorer menu in the top, Click "View" menu item and then choose "Select Columns"
5. In the Process Performance tab, select "Start Time" and click OK button.
6. Then for each process you can view the process start time in "Start Time" column.

Viewing Process Start time in Process Explorer