Folder creation dates from WMI

A question on the powershell.org about finding the creation date of folders raises some interesting points

To find a folder’s creation date use:

Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Directory -Filter “Drive=’C:’ AND Path = ‘\\users\\$user\\'” | select Name, @{N=’Creation date’; E={$_.ConvertToDateTime($_.CreationDate)}}

OR

Get-CimInstance -ClassName Win32_Directory -Filter “Drive=’C:’ AND Path = ‘\\users\\$user\\'” | select Name, CreationDate

If you use Get-WmiObject the date is returned in the form

20160128110039.938756+000

Which is why you need to perform the conversion using the ConvetToDateTime method that PowerShell adds to every WMI object.

Get-CimInstance automatically performs the conversion for you.

The other interesting part is the filter

“Drive=’C:’ AND Path = ‘\\users\\$user\\'”

Note that it’s wrapped in double quotes. Each of the values is a string so HAS to be in single quotes. Also note that you need to double the \ characters as WMI treats a single \ as an escape character so you have to escape the escape character.

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