Uptime is a measure of system reliability, expressed as the percentage of time a machine, typically a computer, has been working and available. Uptime is the opposite of downtime.
It is often used as a measure of computer operating system reliability or stability, in that this time represents the time a computer can be left unattended without crashing, or needing to be rebooted for administrative or maintenance purposes.
Conversely, long uptime may indicate negligence, because some critical updates can require reboots on some platforms.
In 2005, Novell reported a server with a 6-year uptime. Although that might sound unusual, that is actually common when servers are maintained under an industrial context and host critical applications such as banking systems.
Netcraft maintains the uptime records for many thousands of web hosting computers.
A server running Novell NetWare has been reported to have been shut down after 16 years of uptime due to a failing hard disk.
A Cisco router has been reported to have been running continuously for 21 years as of 2018. As of April, 11, 2023, the uptime has increased to 26 years, 11 weeks, 1 day, 1 hour, and 36 minutes.
Some versions of Microsoft Windows include an uptime field in Windows Task Manager, under the "Performance" tab. The format is D:HH:MM:SS (days, hours, minutes, seconds).
The output of the systeminfo command includes a "System Up Time" or "System Boot Time" field.
C:>systeminfo | findstr "Time:"
System Up Time: 0 days, 8 hours, 7 minutes, 19 seconds
The exact text and format is dependent on the language and locale. The time given by systeminfo is not reliable. It does not take into account time spent in sleep or hibernation. Thus, the boot time will drift forward every time the computer sleeps or hibernates.
The NET command with its STATISTICS sub-command provides the date and time the computer started, for both the NET STATISTICS WORKSTATION and NET STATISTICS SERVER variants. The command NET STATS SRV is shorthand for NET STATISTICS SERVER.