Is there a way to get file metadata from the command line?

Question

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 7 screenshot:

Answer 1

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).

Answer 2

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

Answer 3

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.