Windows 10: Retaining the original "Date Modified" of folders transferred from one computer to the other

CONTEXT: I sat down today to transfer the folders from my old Microsoft Surface Book 1 computer to my new Microsoft Surface Book 3 computer. During the last four years I built up a director of over 900 folders. I now want to transport the folders from my old computer to my new computer.



In the first step, I moved all of the folders from my old computer on to a thumb drive plugged into the old computer's USB slot. I was delighted that the identity of the folder as observed in the transfer thumb drive -- when observed in "Details" mode -- was the same as what it had been on the old computer. That includes the "Date Modified" column. The "Date Modified" column helps me understand what folders I have been rummaging around in lately, so I was happy to see that the intermediate transport thumb drive retained that information for "Date Modified" after I moved the folders from the old laptop to the thumb drive. Everything is fine so far.


However, when I moved the folders from the Thumb Drive to the NEW laptop computer, then the "Date Modified" date was changed to reflect today's date . . . namely the time and date that I moved the files from my thumb drive to the New lap top Document Folder. This is not my hoped-for outcome, because the "Date Modified" is important to me, since it signifies files that have been recently accessed according to the last date or time I modified or added a file into those folders.


QUESTION: How can I move folders from an old computer to a new computer so that I retain the same "Date Modified" identity that existing for each of the folders before I made the transfer of folders from old to new computer?

:)

 

Change multiple Date Modified entries

Is it possible to achieve the following by either command prompt, PowerShell, batch file, VBS script or any other tool please?

I have folders containing subfolders, and in each subfolder there is a single file with extension '.ino', with the same filename as the subfolder. For example parent folder XYZ contains subfolder SubABC and in that is a file named SubABC.ino.

But here's the thing. Somehow the Date Modified entries for all the subfolders like ABC have lost their original Modified dates. The INO files have retained them correctly.

So I want to automatically change all the subfolder Date Modified entries to be identical to the Date Modified entry of their INO file of the same name.

All suggestions would be much appreciated please.

Terry

 

Sort by 'Date Modified' but keep folders at the top?

Hi,



Thank you for writing to Microsoft Community Forums.



I understand that after recent update when you sort the files by Date Modified, the folders are listed at the bottom. We would like to know which update was installed on the computer, to check go to
Start >> Settings >> Update & Security >> Windows Update >> View update history.



However, you can go ahead and try the following steps and see if that helps in listing the folders at top:

1. Open File Explorer and navigate to the location where your files are stored.
   
2. Sort files by Date Modified (Recent files first).
   
3. Hold Shift key and click on the
   Name column. This will bring folders at the top with files sorted with Date Modified.
   

Let us know the results.



Regards,

Nikhar Khare

Microsoft Community - Moderator

 

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