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Does anyone know of a software that can record file modification times?

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Edvard:
how many files, and how often do they change?

is this something that could be polled hourly or every xx minutes?
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That would be my question as well, because it sounds like it'd make a great coding snack.  :tellme:

4wd:
File Watcher Utilities - (Windows, Linux, MacOS)

Run as GUI, Console, and Windows Service.

Description

File system/directory monitoring utilities with loggin and task processing support (can execute files or make a WCF service call). Multiple configuration options. Source code libraries can be used to create a custom file system monitor.
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Does anyone know of a software that can record file modification times? Does anyone know of a software that can record file modification times?

Sample output with just default logging options:

--- Code: Text ---[4/12/2013 7:44:15 PM] [Info] Application started.[12/4/2013 7:45:49 PM] [Info] Daemon 'Watch K' is starting.[12/4/2013 7:45:49 PM] [Info] Daemon 'Watch K' is started.[12/4/2013 7:45:56 PM] [Info] File or folder changed 'K:\temp'.[12/4/2013 7:45:59 PM] [Info] File or folder created 'K:\fwatcher.xml'.[12/4/2013 7:45:59 PM] [Info] File or folder changed 'K:\fwatcher.xml'.[12/4/2013 7:46:01 PM] [Info] File or folder created 'K:\temp\fwatcher.xml'.[12/4/2013 7:46:01 PM] [Info] File or folder changed 'K:\temp'.[12/4/2013 7:46:01 PM] [Info] File or folder changed 'K:\temp\fwatcher.xml'.[12/4/2013 7:46:06 PM] [Info] File or folder created 'K:\temp\WPDNSE\fwatcher.log'.[12/4/2013 7:46:06 PM] [Info] File or folder changed 'K:\temp\WPDNSE'.[12/4/2013 7:46:06 PM] [Info] File or folder changed 'K:\temp\WPDNSE\fwatcher.log'.[12/4/2013 7:46:22 PM] [Info] File or folder changed 'K:\temp\fwatcher.xml'.[12/4/2013 7:46:22 PM] [Info] File or folder changed 'K:\temp\fwatcher.xml'.[12/4/2013 7:46:22 PM] [Info] File or folder changed 'K:\temp\fwatcher.xml'.[12/4/2013 7:47:57 PM] [Info] Daemon 'Watch K' is stopped.[12/4/2013 7:47:58 PM] [Info] All processes have exited.[12/4/2013 7:50:51 PM] [Info] Application stopped.

widgewunner:
Wouldn't SysInternals Process Monitor do the trick? (It now includes the functionality of the legacy FILEMON and REGMON utilities.) It has extensive logging powers but possibly a steep learning curve.

x16wda:
There are an awful lot of Windows utilities that do this general sort of thing, depending on your full set of requirements. Do you just need to know when something changed? Do you also need to know what changed? Or who changed it? Are you talking content, or file size, or time stamp on the file? Do you only need to know when it changed at some later time, or do you need to take some kind of action when the change occurs? Will there be a user logged into the computer (so you could use a foreground program) or do you need a service that can start when the computer boots? How often do you expect the changes to occur, could there be bunches at basically the same time?

FWIW, last time I went through the process of looking I didn't find the perfect utility.  I think the closest I came was called "The Folder Spy" which had a fairly primitive interface (and a green background!) but could take an action on detection of a change.  Looking just now I see there was an update to version 2 a few years ago, available here.  I had found some prettier utilities that could run as a service but they didn't seem to be as reliable.  I don't recall the one 4wd found, I ought to test that.

I appreciate the activity in this thread!

Shades:
For this kind of purposes a CVS (content versioning system) would be ideal. It requires discipline to use but it can track which file(s) changed, but also by who, and depending on the file type even what.

SVN, Git, Mercurial and CVS have freely available server software and 3rd party client software (also free and/or open source) that make working with these servers very handy. SVN server with TortoiseSVN seem to fit the bill best.

Note that my advice comes from personal experience years ago and that I didn't keep up. I don't know if similar solutions exist for Git or Mercurial, as these are the most modern CVS systems out there. SVN and CVS are old (10+ years) and established names.

Once you do have and use the required discipline in storing files, you will wonder how you could have done any work without it.

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