{"id":508,"date":"2011-12-01T16:38:31","date_gmt":"2011-12-01T21:38:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/osric.com\/chris\/accidental-developer\/?p=508"},"modified":"2011-12-01T16:39:04","modified_gmt":"2011-12-01T21:39:04","slug":"updating-a-windows-timestamp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/osric.com\/chris\/accidental-developer\/2011\/12\/updating-a-windows-timestamp\/","title":{"rendered":"Updating a Windows timestamp"},"content":{"rendered":"

Let’s say you need to modify the timestamp, or last modified date, on a Windows file. In my case, I wanted to change the last modified date on a lot of PDF files, so that the last modified attribute would reflect the date the content<\/em> was last modified (rather than the file<\/em>).<\/p>\n

The best and easiest way I’ve found to do this is via Cygwin<\/a>:
\ntouch -t 201109201145 *.pdf<\/code><\/p>\n

When I searched for how to accomplish this, I found all sorts of sites advising me to download a $20 shareware application, or write a C# application to do it. Fortunately, in a *nix type environment, it’s a one-line command.<\/p>\n

There are other ports of Unix\/Linux\/*nix commands for Windows, some of which may be more lightweight than Cygwin. (I rely on Cygwin quite a bit, so I have it installed on all my Windows machines.) I have not used any of the following, but here are links to some alternatives, in case you are interested:<\/p>\n