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Is there a way to get a file's metadata from the command line in Windows XP and above?

Particularly, I'm interested in getting the information one might normally see on the "Details" tab of a file's "Properties" dialog in Windows 7. ("Version" tab in XP.) Screenshots of both are below, to give an idea of what I'm after.

If possible, I'd rather do this through cmd.exe or something else that comes standard with Windows XP SP3 and above. If this is not possible, my preferred alternatives would be:

  • PowerShell
  • A SysInternals utility
  • A Nirsoft utility
  • Some other tool from a similarly reputable and well-recognized developer.

Windows XP screenshot:
Windows XP - Version tab in File Properties

Windows 7 screenshot:
Windows 7 - Details tab in File Properties

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    You can install FILEVER from the Windows CD. Commented Dec 1, 2011 at 3:45
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    @WilliamJackson - That sounds like a possible answer. Mind posting it as one, and maybe fleshing it out a bit with some of the info that's in that KB article? Also, could you suggest something for higher versions of Windows? I understand from some searching that FILEVER is not included on those CDs, and so may not be a supported tool for those versions. Commented Dec 1, 2011 at 4:07

4 Answers 4

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You can use WMIC.exe to get most of the way there:

 C:\>wmic datafile where Name="C:\\Windows\\System32\\cmd.exe" get Manufacturer,Name,Version Manufacturer Name Version Microsoft Corporation c:\windows\system32\cmd.exe 6.1.7601.17514

Note the escaping of the backslashes \ in the path (it does not work otherwise).

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  • extension of this method to compare versions in a batch: superuser.com/a/904535/131936 Commented Apr 22, 2015 at 8:03
  • You can get just about any OS info you need for most operations through WMI but it comes with a major caveat; it's quite slow. Orders of magnitude slower than most of the more direct routes. That said, it does work for a lot of queries and monitoring. Commented Oct 17, 2016 at 17:35
  • This give an error: wmic : Unexpected switch at this level. on W81, same for Iszi soulution. Commented Mar 9, 2017 at 8:25
  • wmic datafile get doesnt really offer most of the info im looking for. any other way to do this? for instance, any way to get the company, authors, legal trademark, copyright, etc, fields of a given file? Commented Jan 22, 2020 at 4:11
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    This seems to no longer be working. Just says "ERROR: Description = Invalid query" Commented Mar 14, 2020 at 12:00
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What you are looking for can be pulled with a combination of dsofile.dll (not needed if you have Office installed) and autoit or any .NET language.

I also found a powershell method, but I haven't been able to test it.

I wrote up a little script with autoit that still needs some tweaking. I am on Vista and I can't get the few dsofile.dll calls to function as I would expect, though it still provides some output that you might be interested in. I'll work on this more in the morning when I have access to an XP and win7 VM. Note that you need to change the path in the dll functions to wherever you install dsofile.dll.

#include <file.au3> Dim $file, $objFile, $Path, $encoding, $attrib, $attributes, $dt, $stamp, $szDrive, $szDir, $szFName, $szExt If $CmdLine[0] = 0 Then ConsoleWrite("You must specify a file") Else $file = $CmdLine[1] If FileExists($file) Then _DLLstartup() $objFile = ObjCreate("DSOFile.OleDocumentProperties") If Not IsObj($objFile) Then Exit $objFile.Open(FileGetLongName($file)) $Path = _PathSplit($file, $szDrive, $szDir, $szFName, $szExt) ConsoleWrite("Filename: " & $Path[3] & $Path[4] & @CRLF) ConsoleWrite("Size: " & FileGetSize($file) & " bytes" & @CRLF) ConsoleWrite("Version: " & FileGetVersion($file) & @CRLF) ConsoleWrite("Company: " & $objFile.SummaryProperties.Company & @CRLF) ConsoleWrite("Author: " & $objFile.SummaryProperties.Author & @CRLF) $encoding = FileGetEncoding($file) Select Case $encoding = 0 $encoding = "ANSI" Case $encoding = 32 $encoding = "UTF16 Little Endian" Case $encoding = 64 $encoding = "UTF16 Big Endian" Case $encoding = 128 $encoding = "UTF8 (with BOM)" Case $encoding = 256 $encoding = "UTF8 (without BOM)" EndSelect ConsoleWrite("Encoding: " & $encoding & @CRLF) $attrib = FileGetAttrib($file) $attributes = "" If StringInStr($attrib, "R") <> 0 Then $attributes = $attributes & " READONLY" EndIf If StringInStr($attrib, "A") <> 0 Then $attributes = $attributes & " ARCHIVE" EndIf If StringInStr($attrib, "S") <> 0 Then $attributes = $attributes & " SYSTEM" EndIf If StringInStr($attrib, "H") <> 0 Then $attributes = $attributes & " HIDDEN" EndIf If StringInStr($attrib, "N") <> 0 Then $attributes = $attributes & " NORMAL" EndIf If StringInStr($attrib, "D") <> 0 Then $attributes = $attributes & " DIRECTORY" EndIf If StringInStr($attrib, "O") <> 0 Then $attributes = $attributes & " OFFLINE" EndIf If StringInStr($attrib, "C") <> 0 Then $attributes = $attributes & " COMPRESSED" EndIf If StringInStr($attrib, "T") <> 0 Then $attributes = $attributes & " TEMPORARY" EndIf ConsoleWrite("Attributes:" & $attributes & @CRLF) $dt = FileGetTime($file, 1) $stamp = $dt[0] & "-" & $dt[1] & "-" & $dt[2] & " " & $dt[3] & ":" & $dt[4] & ":" & $dt[5] ConsoleWrite("Created: " & $stamp & @CRLF) $dt = FileGetTime($file, 0) $stamp = $dt[0] & "-" & $dt[1] & "-" & $dt[2] & " " & $dt[3] & ":" & $dt[4] & ":" & $dt[5] ConsoleWrite("Accessed: " & $stamp & @CRLF) $dt = FileGetTime($file, 2) $stamp = $dt[0] & "-" & $dt[1] & "-" & $dt[2] & " " & $dt[3] & ":" & $dt[4] & ":" & $dt[5] ConsoleWrite("Modified: " & $stamp & @CRLF) ConsoleWrite("Short Name: " & FileGetShortName($file, 1) & @CRLF) ConsoleWrite("Long Name: " & FileGetLongName($file, 1)) $objFile.Close _DLLshutdown() Else ConsoleWrite("Can't find file") EndIf EndIf Func _DLLstartup($DLLpath = '') ;borrowed from Andrew Goulart If $DLLpath = Default Or $DLLpath = '' Then $DLLpath = "C:\DsoFile\dsofile.dll";@ScriptDir & '\dsofile.dll' ShellExecuteWait('regsvr32', '/s /i ' & $DLLpath, @WindowsDir, 'open', @SW_HIDE) EndFunc Func _DLLshutdown($DLLpath = '') ;borrowed from Andrew Goulart If $DLLpath = Default Or $DLLpath = '' Then $DLLpath = "C:\DsoFile\dsofile.dll";@ScriptDir & '\dsofile.dll' ShellExecuteWait('regsvr32', ' /s /u ' & $DLLpath, @WindowsDir, 'open', @SW_HIDE) EndFunc
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Just to expand on @bobbymcr 's answer above (which I found very helpful, thank you!); you can simplify the command and broaden the results by using the LIST BRIEF or LIST FULL options.

Check > wmic datafile list /? for more details.

This solution helped me:
> wmic datafile "c:\\path\\to\\file.exe" list full

Note: As mentioned by @bobbymcr, remember to escape the \, else it won't work.

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  • This doesn't work... Commented Mar 9, 2017 at 8:21
  • Sorry this isn't working for you. I've just tried it again and it does work. Win7, admin rights. Full file path, and escaped '\'. Commented Mar 21, 2018 at 12:16
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To get all metadata:

wmic datafile where name="c:\\path\\to\\file.ext"

To view neatly in separate lines:

wmic datafile where name="c:\\path\\to\\file.ext" get /value
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