Windows 10: Official definition and rationale behind metadata such as "date modified" and "date created".

Hello,I need an official definition and the rationale behind the metadata of "date modified" and "date created" of files and folders. My job is in the field of Forensic Data Analytics and I need to have an official definition i.e. not a forum thread or an opinion how well informed it may be in order to base my analysis of metadata on that. Thanks in advance for your help.Best regardsPatrick

:)

 

Illogical date modified updating

Hi,

Thank you for writing to Microsoft Community Forums.

I understand that the modified date is just as important as the created date within the metadata of a given file. We will look into this for you.
However, in order to get clarity and to assist you accordingly, please reply with the answers to the questions below.

1. What is the build of Windows 10 running on your system?
   
2. Was there any major change or an update on your system prior to which you weren’t facing this issue?
   
3. Is the issue only with the pictures taken from the camera or the other pictures and files within the system as well?
   

Meanwhile, I would suggest you to follow the steps below and check if it is helpful to you.

Method 1: Enable the Date Modified Column in the File Explorer.

To enable the Date modified column within the particular folder, please follow the steps below.

1. Open the Folder in which you wish to see the Date modified column.
   
2. Right-click on the
   Header for Name, date, type etc. This will give you a list of columns that can be displayed.
   
3. Select the option Date modified, clearing the tick removes that column.
   
4. Modify a file and check if it is being reflected in the Date modified column.
   

If the issue still persists, where you aren’t able to see the value in the Date modified column even after making the changes to the particular file, please follow ‘Method 2’.

Method 2: Create a new user account.

This issue could be due to profile corruption. Hence to eliminate possibilities, I would suggest you to ‘Create
a local user or administrator account’ and check if the issue persists.

Note:
You will not see all your files under your default file location. So your data will be saved under C:\users\user_name.

We await your response.

Aaron Summith

Microsoft Community - Moderator

 

Download managers - keep file created date but modified=download date

Seeking 3rd party download managers that :
1. do not change the file created date (or, at least, keep the server created date)
2. sets the modified date to download date.

So, for instance, I download a file today, then the file has
(for example) created date: 01-07-2019
modified date: 19-09-2022

My current download manager (IDM) can keep the 'server date' (so, 01-07-2019 in the above example), but the modified date will the be the same as the server date.

Downloads are stored in a downloads folder, amongst many other files of previous downloads and other temporary files.
The downloaded file is difficult to find then: it is somewhere amongst the others. In case of the modified date being the date of download, one can sort then on modified date and easily find the downloaded file.

Thanks for any suggestions.




Any suggestions?

 

Windows 10: Date, Date Created and Date Modified

Good question re: 'Date created' and 'Date modified' - but I have actually seen date modified be earlier than date created. No idea how or why.