Microsoft

Ask something
Question Locked

Creation date later than modified date

0 helpful
3 replies

by hodkinss

Closed to new repliesThis discussion is closed. It stays readable, but it takes no new replies.

In Word XP the creation date of a document can be later than the modified date when saved elsewhere. Microsoft say

"When the document is copied or is saved to a new location, a new file is created. This file is generated by a parent file that has the earlier "Modified" date. This parent file also has an earlier "Created" date.

When you copy or re-save a document, the "Created" date is updated in the Statistics tab and in the General tab. However, the "Modified" date is not updated."

Does anyone know of a way of finding the original 'Creation' date? We are dealing with some old documents where the original pc is long gone

3 replies

by bizzo

I think that once the original creation date has been overwritten by the "copy" date you cannot get it back.

If you need to set it back to some arbitrary date, then you can use one of the many "touch" commands available.

To stop this happening in the future, you could copy the files using robocopy.exe (part of windows resource kit tools) which has a switch to retain the timestamp.

by hodkinss

I've never heard of that one. I'll check it out.

This discussion is closed to new replies.