How and Why are my file dates and times being changed automatically?
I made a backup copy of a 1TB hard drive on a new, clean 1TB hard drive (let's call it Drive B) a few days ago. No hassles, no problems.
Today, 5/17/2018, I went to move some files from Drive B into my laptop to do a little work on them. These files were in a folder on the first drive:
Past Years/2016/Previous Months/08/27/shows
After I made the corrections I saved the files back to the SAME folder. Later, I went back in to check them and saw that the dates of ALL the files in that folder--including the ones I never touched when I worked on the few that I did--showed the date information as: Date Created 5/17/18.
What the heck is going on here?
How does the date get changed on files like this? This makes replacing some files with the same name a really confuding task!!!
Today, 5/17/2018, I went to move some files from Drive B into my laptop to do a little work on them. These files were in a folder on the first drive:
Past Years/2016/Previous Months/08/27/shows
After I made the corrections I saved the files back to the SAME folder. Later, I went back in to check them and saw that the dates of ALL the files in that folder--including the ones I never touched when I worked on the few that I did--showed the date information as: Date Created 5/17/18.
What the heck is going on here?
How does the date get changed on files like this? This makes replacing some files with the same name a really confuding task!!!
ASKER
OK, either my brain is fried or I did not state the question 100% properly. (And I was offline because of traveling the last two weeks as well, causing so much silence on my part.)
Let me restate the problem in another way...
Yesterday, I opened a vbs file Notepad, made a simple spelling correction, then saved the file and exited.
Today, I open the folder where that file was stored, to add something else to it, and when I opened that folder, I saw EVERY DOCUMENT in the folder had had its creation date ALSO changed to yesterday.
This is a HUGE nuisance. I do not recall messing with any computer settings that might have caused this, but I want it to stop.
Experts, what say you?
Let me restate the problem in another way...
Yesterday, I opened a vbs file Notepad, made a simple spelling correction, then saved the file and exited.
Today, I open the folder where that file was stored, to add something else to it, and when I opened that folder, I saw EVERY DOCUMENT in the folder had had its creation date ALSO changed to yesterday.
This is a HUGE nuisance. I do not recall messing with any computer settings that might have caused this, but I want it to stop.
Experts, what say you?
ASKER
Well, I was waiting for a reply but maybe I did something wrong.
Shall we try again, anyone?
Shall we try again, anyone?
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
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In NTFS there's creation time, modification time and access time. Explorer shows the modification time, not the creation time or access time.
https://www.techrepublic.com/article/build-your-skills-learn-to-manipulate-file-time-stamps-in-windows/
By default, Explorer shows the last modification time. So what you saw is correct.
Explorer can be set to show all the times, not just the last modification time. See the section headed "Viewing time stamps via Windows Explorer" in the link above.