Loss of date information for attached files in Outlook

[Guest]

When I send a file as an e-mail attachment in Outlook, the date information
for the file is lost. The "date created", "date modified" and "date
accessed" are all reset to the date and time when I received the e-mail. I
would like at least the "date created" to be the original creation date of
the file.

The messages are sent from Outlook on a Windows NT system to Outlook on
Windows XP.

Many thanks for any help!

 

[Pat Willener]

I would compress the files into a ZIP file; this way all file attributes
are conserved.

 

[Guest]

I would compress the files into a ZIP file; this way all file attributes
are conserved.

Thanks a lot, this works fine!

After posting my query, I found another thread where someone explained that
attachments are not really attached, but embedded into the body of the e-mail
message. Apparently the file header (with the date information and other
attributes) is NOT embedded.

 

[Brian Tillman]

After posting my query, I found another thread where someone
explained that attachments are not really attached, but embedded into
the body of the e-mail message. Apparently the file header (with the
date information and other attributes) is NOT embedded.

That's absolutely true. Typically, no metadata for the file (i.e.,
date/time stamps, ownership, permissions, etc.) is included when you attach
a file. You're not really sending the original file but an encoded copy of
it that becomes the recipient's when s/he saves it to their disk.