Last Access Time

[Guest]

Running Win2000 server and trying to cleanup old public folders based on Last
Access Date. But I see dates regularly changing and am not sure why? I know
if you click on a file and do properties, that the access time is updated,
but what else could be doing this? Running Symantec in Auto-protect mode with
the "preserve file times" setting checked. Ran manual scan and times didn't
change. Also running Netbackup, but on a test the file times didn't change
either. Is there some server service that can be doing this? Thanks for any
help.

 

[Michael Bednarek]

Running Win2000 server and trying to cleanup old public folders based on Last
Access Date. But I see dates regularly changing and am not sure why? I know
if you click on a file and do properties, that the access time is updated,
but what else could be doing this? Running Symantec in Auto-protect mode with
the "preserve file times" setting checked. Ran manual scan and times didn't
change. Also running Netbackup, but on a test the file times didn't change
either. Is there some server service that can be doing this? Thanks for any
help.

Last Access Time for directories is a tricky thing. It is updated from
the files in that directory. Any activity on files in it will change the
directory's Last Access Time, albeit with up to an hour's delay.

Using Last Access Time as the basis for any decision seems unwise to me,
quite apart from the fact that it can easily be turned off altogether,
which it is here on all our servers.

 

[Guest]

Thanks Michael, I should have been more specific - what about Last Access
Time for individual files? These seem to change too. I agree LAT is a tricky
thing and am trying to convince my boss we should use Last Modify, it's just
maddening that I can't find what is causing this.

 

[Michael Bednarek]

Thanks Michael, I should have been more specific - what about Last Access
Time for individual files? These seem to change too. I agree LAT is a tricky
thing and am trying to convince my boss we should use Last Modify, it's just
maddening that I can't find what is causing this.

I'm really the wrong guy to ask -I use NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate
everywhere- but I'm sure that Last Access Time is updated by every
Explorer operation, and probably by every browse-for-file dialogue as
well. According to Microsoft's own documentation a folder listing will
change it, too.