timeGetTime function (timeapi.h)

The timeGetTime function retrieves the system time, in milliseconds. The system time is the time elapsed since Windows was started.

Syntax

DWORD timeGetTime();

Return value

Returns the system time, in milliseconds.

Remarks

The only difference between this function and the timeGetSystemTime function is that timeGetSystemTime uses the MMTIME structure to return the system time. The timeGetTime function has less overhead than timeGetSystemTime.

Note that the value returned by the timeGetTime function is a DWORD value. The return value wraps around to 0 every 2^32 milliseconds, which is about 49.71 days. This can cause problems in code that directly uses the timeGetTime return value in computations, particularly where the value is used to control code execution. You should always use the difference between two timeGetTime return values in computations.

The default precision of the timeGetTime function can be five milliseconds or more, depending on the machine. You can use the timeBeginPeriod and timeEndPeriod functions to increase the precision of timeGetTime. If you do so, the minimum difference between successive values returned by timeGetTime can be as large as the minimum period value set using timeBeginPeriod and timeEndPeriod. Use the QueryPerformanceCounter and QueryPerformanceFrequency functions to measure short time intervals at a high resolution.

Requirements

Requirement	Value
Minimum supported client	Windows 2000 Professional [desktop apps only]
Minimum supported server	Windows 2000 Server [desktop apps only]
Target Platform	Windows
Header	timeapi.h (include Windows.h)
Library	Winmm.lib
DLL	Winmm.dll

See also

Multimedia Timer Functions

Multimedia Timers