date accessed

[harryray2]

If a file is changed either by me or the system shouldn't the date accessed change?

Ta!!

[froggie]

Date accessed is not updated by default in Windows 7,8 and 10 (and Vista?) for performance reasons. The field gets whatever value it has from file creation and a few other things, but not normal access. If you are willing to take the performance hit it can be enabled and its status inquired upon with the Windows fsutil command. See https://www.opentechguides.com/how-to/a ... -time.html

[therube]

Date accessed is not updated by default in Windows 7,8 and 10 (and Vista?)

Thanks. While I don't typically deal with DA, I'm not sure I had realized that.

[harryray2]

Thanks...is it a noticeable performance hit when enabled?

[froggie]

It of course depends on activity level. It is simple enough to turn on and off, so see for yourself, in your environment.

Note this post from Void:

Re: Date Accessed index doesn't work consistently
Postby void » Sat May 05, 2018 4:18 am
Everything will not detect date accessed changes.

The USN Journal does not receive a notification about date accessed changes.

Everything updates the file times when it receives a BASIC_INFO_CHANGE notification in the USN Journal.

Also, ReadDirectoryChanges (for folder indexes) does not receive any notification when the date accessed changes.
Neither does SHChangeNotify.

I've put on my TODO list to research this some more and see if it possible to monitor date accessed.

- you may have to do a force rebuild to see date accessed changes.

[harryray2]

Thanks, I'll try it but excuse the silly question, is it a performance hit on the system in general or just in Everything?

[froggie]

System wide. A access date has to be updated in the directory of every file that is read (files that are written to already have their directory entries updated, but many more file are open for read access than for write).