Created - Modified - Accessed ... dates don't seem to behave correctly

  • Thread starter Thread starter Chris
  • Start date Start date
C

Chris

Created - Modified - Accessed ... dates don't seem to behave correctly.

I made a text file and looked at its properties.
As expected, all three dates were the same.

I altered the file and, as expected, the second and third dates had
changed.

Then I opened the file and closed it again - and the third date had not
changed to reflect my accessing of the file.

How do these dates work?
 
When you closed the file after accessing it did you have explorer open? If
so you have to refresh the window to see the date accessed update. Also note
that when your av program scans the files it may update the date accessed
date also, mine does.
 
When you closed the file after accessing it did you have explorer open? If
so you have to refresh the window to see the date accessed update. Also note
that when your av program scans the files it may update the date accessed
date also, mine does.
Click to expand...

No - I didn't use Windows Explorer.
I right clicked on the file (which was on the desktop)
and selected "properties".
And the problem was the opposite to the one you mention:
the file was *not* getting its access date updated
when it should have done - because it had in fact been accessed!
Can anyone duplicate my findings?
 
Chris said:
No - I didn't use Windows Explorer.
I right clicked on the file (which was on the desktop)
and selected "properties".
And the problem was the opposite to the one you mention:
the file was *not* getting its access date updated
when it should have done - because it had in fact been accessed!
Can anyone duplicate my findings?
Click to expand...

Ok, I did some testing on this and it appears this feature is definetly
buggy. First, I found that anything on the desktop does not update its date
accessed date. Second, I found that if you have a folder with alot of text
documents in it, and you open one of those documents, its date accessed does
update when you look in explorer, but so does at least two or three other
files that did not get opened. It was changing the date accessed date on
files I didn't even access. It looks like it just doesn't work right. I did
this on two different xp machines in two different locations.
 
purplehaz said:
Ok, I did some testing on this and it appears this feature is definetly
buggy. First, I found that anything on the desktop does not update its date
accessed date. Second, I found that if you have a folder with alot of text
documents in it, and you open one of those documents, its date accessed does
update when you look in explorer, but so does at least two or three other
files that did not get opened. It was changing the date accessed date on
files I didn't even access. It looks like it just doesn't work right. I did
this on two different xp machines in two different locations.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your confirmation. I wondered whether it was a bug or a
feature ... and your investigation seems to confirm that it's a bug.
Perhaps others would like to check this - as a way of doing a thorough
peer-group review.
And, if others agree, what is the best way to inform Microsoft?
Is its appearance in this newsgroup enough - in that the newsgroup will
be monitored by Microsoft staff?
 
purplehaz said:
Ok, I did some testing on this and it appears this feature is definetly
buggy. First, I found that anything on the desktop does not update its
date accessed date. Second, I found that if you have a folder with alot
of text documents in it, and you open one of those documents, its date
accessed does update when you look in explorer, but so does at least
two or three other files that did not get opened. It was changing the
date accessed date on files I didn't even access. It looks like it just
doesn't work right. I did this on two different xp machines in two
different locations.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your investigation.
The more I think about this the more it seems to be not a trivial
problem
but a very serious problem.
I can imagine people in business relying on these dates
to confirm when various actions were taken.
And systems administrators *must* want accurate date data!
It seems to me that urgent attention is needed.
Has anyone found any Microsoft announcements about this?
 
Chris said:
No - I didn't use Windows Explorer.
I right clicked on the file (which was on the desktop)
and selected "properties".
Click to expand...

Then you were in fact using windows explorer - the desktop is just a
rather special window

It will probably update if you have the desktop background in focus and
hit F5 to refresh it
 
Chris said:
Thanks for your confirmation. I wondered whether it was a bug or a
feature ... and your investigation seems to confirm that it's a bug.
Perhaps others would like to check this - as a way of doing a thorough
peer-group review.
And, if others agree, what is the best way to inform Microsoft?
Is its appearance in this newsgroup enough - in that the newsgroup
will be monitored by Microsoft staff?
Click to expand...

There's only a few MS employees that show up in here from time to time, so
just having it in this group, I imagine, is not enough. But as Kelly pointed
out seems MS is aware.
 
Chris said:
Thanks for your investigation.
The more I think about this the more it seems to be not a trivial
problem
but a very serious problem.
I can imagine people in business relying on these dates
to confirm when various actions were taken.
And systems administrators *must* want accurate date data!
It seems to me that urgent attention is needed.
Has anyone found any Microsoft announcements about this?
Click to expand...

I can see that this would be a problem for some. Hopefully they get it fixed
in SP2.
 
Alex Nichol said:
It will probably update if you have the desktop background in focus and
hit F5 to refresh it
Click to expand...

No it doesn't. You try it - it takes only a moment.
Do you think a Windows Update fix is needed?
 
BTW - some of your article appeared as part of your sig.

Chris, I am a top poster that happens to use a signature.
 
Chris said:
The desktop IS Explorer (specifically, part of the visible
manifestation of the zeroth instance of Explorer, along with Taskbar,
QuickLaunch and Start menu) so refresh (F5) helps :-)

Sure sounds buggy, unless something else is "touching" those files.
I'd put a small bet on the indexing service, there.


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